Howard Alger has definitely lived an interesting life. Whether he's taking phone calls at his own business, Denison Welding Supply in Fredonia, KS, or restoring his cars in his "barns" at his home in Chanute, KS this man is one that everyone should know. I have know Mr. Alger since the day I (Howard and me, 1988) was born. In fact, he swears that he was the first person I smiled at. For as long as I can remember, he was the best "grandpa" that anyone could have. He would sit me on his shoulders to watch the Mayor's Christmas Tree in Kansas City, and let me travel with him to car auctions all the way to Texas. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1956, where he proudly served his country as a teletype operator in Tokyo, Japan. Once he was discharged from the Army, he returned to Chanute where he eventually bought Denison Welding Supply and became an antique car collector. He now has twenty-four antique cars, and isn't about to stop collecting them.

I am Howard Alger, and my birthdate is December 7, 1932. I was born in Chanute, KS and raised in Chanute. My mothers name was Margaret Ella Alger. Her maiden name was Kruger. My fathers name was Warren James Alger. I had two brothers, [Melvin and Kenneth]* and a sister [Marjorie]. I went to school in Chanute all through the eleventh grade...I quit in the eleventh grade. We grew up in an era of, "If you needed anything or wanted anything, you had to work for it." That's one reason I quit school in my earlier years. Money was very, very tight at that time. So, anything you wanted, you worked for yourself. When I was a young person, I worked at filling stations; and then in later years I worked in the oil fields and had part interest in an oil supply store until 1956, when I was drafted into the service. I finished my GED while I was in the service.

I married Donna Murdock in 1953. [I met her] at a roller skating rink. I have one child, Russell J. Alger, 33, and I have four grandchildren; the youngest one being six years old and the oldest being eleven.

Back in my growing up, in the early '50's, the draft was going on and everybody had a six year military obligation...I went up for my pre-induction physical in 1954, but I was not drafted until 1956. Back then you were either drafted or you enlisted. If you were drafted you had a serial number of US. It started with that and my serial number was US 55553377. Now if I would have volunteered, I would have had an RA number. At that time, you served two years active duty, two years active duty reserve and two years standby reserve. This was law. You had no choice. It was mandatory that you did this. I was drafted and inducted in May of '56.

You couldn't plan anything. You could not plan anything at all. The only good thing out of it was, not good but, at that time, I worked in the oil fields, and it was hard to find a job. I had a job, but nobody really wanted you if they knew that you were gonna be drafted. The thing of it was, and I don't know how it is now, but I'm sure it's still the same, but if you were drafted, when you came back, and you wanted your job, they had to give you your job back. I presume it's still that way. But you did have your job to come back to. But you couldn't, say you wanted to buy a car and you had to finance it; it was pretty hard to do, 'cause you didn't know whether you were going to be able to make the payments. When I was drafted, I worked six days a week, and I made $240 a month, $60 a week. And when I was drafted, I made $90 a month. That's quite a cut. So, you didn't dare to really go in debt any. So for two years, your life, it was just, you existed day by day.
I got home [on] a Saturday evening, two years after the time I took my physical, looking forward to doing a lot of fun things. At that time I was twenty-one years old, and there in the mailbox, was my "Greetings, your friends and neighbors have selected you to represent them in the United States of America. You will report to the local bus depot on May 6, 1956 for transportation to Kansas City for induction into the armed services." I sure didn't like my friends and neighbors. [laughs] You usually got drafted within six months or less, and why I was two years [getting drafted] I don't know. I really didn't know what to expect when I was drafted, to be right honest. When I got my orders, I went through basic training at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and I was there for two months. Then when I finished that, I went for advanced training at Fort Gordon, Georgia and I was there for two months. I was in the signal corps; and when I left Fort Gordon, Georgia, I went to Fort Lewis.
In basic training everything was hurry up and wait. They would get you up at 3:30 in the morning. The first thing you did, course, you made your bed; and then you take your shower and do all of that good stuff and then at like 4:30, or maybe 4:00...the bugle would blow. And (Howard at Fort Chaffee, May 1956) you would go to mess hall; and you would stand in line maybe for an hour before you ate. And then you would do whatever training you had. Maybe today you had bayonet training. I never did like bayonet training, 'cause of, you were learning to stab people to kill them. It tore me up...You still had to do it; you had to pass it.

There was no whining...the discipline was there. You knew that you had to do it. There was no question. If you did not, you wound up in the stockade. It's just that simple. I'm not, I'm not sorry I was drafted [however]; I wouldn't volunteer to do it. But it is good discipline, very good discipline. Maybe today you'd have basic training [and] maybe tomorrow you'd have obstacle course...like crawling under barbed-wire fences with your gun in the mud, with live ammunition being fired over your head. Swinging across the creek, going from here to there, under enemy fire. Maybe the next day you'd be on the rifle range, perfecting your rifle. Everybody had to qualify with the M-16, machine guns, and things like that. I used to lay there, aiming at the bullseye down there, and I wondered many, many times, "How can I ever pull that trigger and take a life?" I don't even own a gun because I can't kill anything. I never was a hunter, and I always wondered, "How can I take somebody's life?" To this day, I don't own a gun. I don't have a gun in the house. I don't care for them. You're trained when you go into the service...for one thing, and that's to kill. That's what you're there for.

I didn't dislike the service. The thing I didn't like about the service [was] you don't have time to think for yourself. They told you when to get up, when to go to bed...I'm a person that likes to think on my own. Everything had a time, everything had a place. You didn't think of causing problems, because it was so strict and it was the way of the Army and being a draftee. I wasn't treated any different than the person that had enlisted. But it was very strict...very demanding. It was a different way of life than I had known before, where you could come and go as you please.

Then, some people would go into armored division in their next training [where] they learned to run tanks or whatever it's going to be. I was fortunate. I went to signal corps. Everybody was assigned at that time...what they call a primary job. I was trained as a teletype operator.
The worst feeling I had was when I left the United States after my basic training and my advanced training and was headed [to Korea]. After you finish your advanced training [your address] was a P.O. Box 500, which was a California address; but you always knew that you were going to Korea. When we got to Tokyo, we knew we were headed to Korea. But, when we got to Tokyo, the plane set down for fuel and they took nineteen of us off of the plane and left us in Tokyo because they needed signal corps in Tokyo. And I worked in the third largest communication center in the world. The other eighteen men were spread out all over Japan at different satellite stations. I monitored all messages that came in out of the communications center [on my shift] and at that time, we could send a message around the world in three minutes.

Once I got to Tokyo, and I was assigned to a unit, I had very good duty. I worked in the signal corps and we worked right downtown Tokyo, in a big building. And I had shift work. Again, I got lucky. I worked from four till midnight in this communications center, and we had a very good commanding officer. I had a good group of people; and in the same building there was a movie theater and things like this here. Our commanding officer was really neat. He'd tell us "As long as the work gets done, one or two of you could go to a movie," It only cost a quarter, and you could [go] to the movie for an hour and a half, or whatever it was, and come back. Myself and a friend of mine bought a car and we toured all over Japan and we would...go out and take pictures all day [of] different parts of Japan, and then on our days that we were off, we'd develop them ourselves. We could go to the PX down there, and we could develop our own pictures and things. I took jillions and jillions of pictures of Tokyo.

Every once in a while...they would test us. This message comes through. Bells go off; and when that bell rings, whoever's in charge of that shift--I was in charge of it--you went right to the teletype that it was coming off of. You would grab the tape that it was coming through on, and you'd start feeding it right into another machine which was sending it onto Korea or wherever it was going. And then the next day,...you would get the report how long it was in your station. If it was in your station over so many seconds, your commanding officer was in trouble; and if he was in trouble, believe me, you were in trouble!

This is a fine place to live. If you don't think so, try living somewhere else in a communist held country. I believed in the war because you know, our country was involved in war and when we have people that's going to places like that, that may not come back, we need to support them with everything that we have; not this line, that you can't cross this line if you go to war. You go to war and that was one of the things that I did not, that I didn't think was right in Korea. We had the 38th Parallel; you fought up to that line and you didn't go across the line. To me, war is war. If one person dies, our country needs to support it 100%. Either we're in war or we're not. And anytime we're in war, or, our commander in chief, which is the president, anytime that the president and Congress declares war, we should support them 100%, because it is a privilege to live in this country, to be able to do what we want to do or have the freedoms, the things that we can do and have.

Our country should have supported those people, 'cause they gave their lives for them, and a lot of them, some of them enlisted, but a lot of them was draftees. They didn't want to go, but out government called on them; and if we live in the country, we owe this country two years of our life. I mean, I'm a firm believer in that, because it's a privilege to live here. We have the highest standard of living in the world, you know. it's, unless you've been there...I've seen people eating out of garbage cans. When I stayed in Tokyo, they were still recovering from World War II, you know. The Mamasons were still sweeping up bomb, buildings with bricks and wheel waters, and we never, have not had that, except in September 11, you know. But even then, it's not like people were going hungry everyday, that their resources are gone. That's why I kinda get upset when I see people who will burn the flag. Our people [are] over there, a lot of them are there, not cause they want to be, 'cause they have to be. So, that's my experience.

In this country here, it's such a privilege to live in 'cause we have yards, we have parks. When I was in the service in the '50's, you didn't have any yards, because they used everything they could to grow something to eat. You had a walkway in front of your house, there may be rows of carrots. We are so fortunate; most people never go to bed hungry here. I mean, for day in and day out, day in and day out. We have food lines and things here for the homeless. There and at that time of war in these countries, there is no food lines. You either find something to eat or you go hungry. That's the way it was [in Japan] in the '50's. I mean, because, they were growing everything at that time. There were carrots that were three feet long, but they used everything. They fertilized with human fertilizer, which made everything...it was not good, but that's all they had. But they'd grow carrots three feet long, and they eat fish, eat everything, you know. In time of war, it's tough. People of your age...it's just a fact that you've never had to see it. You've never had to go to a gas station and have stamps to get gas, you know; never had to be rationed, have stamps to buy tires. War is...war is terrible. It's just absolutely terrible.

When I came back out, I opened up a oil field supply store with myself and another man in 1959, and I operated it until 1965; and then I purchased Denison Welding Supply in 1965. When I went there, I bought one third of Denison Welding Supply; and then after Mr. Denison decided to retire, I bought the other two thirds out. When I bought one third of it, it was between myself, his wife and Mr. Denison. And then after he decided to retire, I went ahead and bought the other two thirds.

Well, my love is antique automobiles. I got interested in those back when I was running stock car back in...I started running stock car [in] 1959. I believe it was 1964 [when] I built my first stock car, and they're a lot different today, a lot faster today than they were then. But anyway, that turned into a sport for me. I enjoyed it. I always liked the antiques much better and I started collecting cars before I went into the service. I bought a 1932 Ford Coupe. In '56 I was drafted and I had to sell it, because I didn't have a place to store it while I was gone. But, I enjoy antique cars. It's something I've always enjoyed. I started collecting cars in 1955. I always had a passion for cars. I liked cars, even when I was a young person and couldn't afford them. In 1955, I had a '40 Ford that I drove, and I bought a...1932 Model B Coupe and that was my first collector car. I went to buying those cars back when people thought I was crazy. Nobody was collecting cars. But in '56 I was drafted; so I had to sell [the car], because I didn't have a place to keep them or anybody to look after them. But I had always liked cars since I was a young person.

My very first car was a 1936 Dodge. I've looked for thirty- five years for a '36 Dodge; and less than six months ago, I found one and I'm restoring it right now. I have a 1925 Cadillac with serial no. 1; there's only three of them known to exist. I have a 1929 Model A, a 1931 Model A Roadster. I have a 1935 Ford. I have a 1936 Dodge. I have a 1937 Buick, a 1938 Buick, a 1939 Buick. I have a 1940 Ford. I have a 1946 Chevrolet, a 1947 Chevrolet, a 1947 Wizard motorbike. I have a 1949 Packard, a 1951 Studebaker. I have a 1952 Chevrolet, 1953 Chevrolet. I have a 1953 Mercury. I have a 1954 Mercury. I have a 1958 Ford, a 1959 Edsel, a 1959 Ford. I have a 1965 Volkswagen. I have a 1966 Mercury and I have a 1972 Olds' Cutlass. [My favorite car] depends on which one I'm in at the time. (laughs) We're either going to have to sell some or build another building or something, because we don't have room for any more cars. I...can't hardly bear to sell any cars. (laughs) I cry whenever I sell one (laughs). I have two cars that I cannot sell, one is a 1952 Chevrolet. I cannot sell that one, and I have a 1929 Model A that I don't ever intend to sell. I probably will give it to my grandson, when he gets old enough to appreciate it. But, I will buy more when I find cars that I like, or that I just want. I am in a position [now]...I can usually buy what I want. We attend shows at quite a few different places, but [for] auctions, we go to Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Dallas, Texas; Fort Worth, Texas; Oklahoma City and Hot Springs, Arkansas. I do probably a half a dozen shows each year, and I'll do parades on special occasions. We do furnish cars for weddings. The biggest one we ever did [was when we] furnished ten cars and drivers for a wedding in Chanute. We haul usually the bride and bridesmaids from the church to wherever they wish to go.
There was a movie, a two-part mini series called "Cross of Fire" and the movie company contacted me [and] they wanted to rent two cars for that movie. It was filmed in Ottawa, Kansas and it was on television. I furnished a 1925 Cadillac, and I furnished a 1928 Willis Night Coupe for the movie "Cross of Fire" which was...about the South and the Ku Klux Klan.

Business has been very good. We've made a very good living out of it all these years. And...my cars are my only hobby. [laughs]

This interview was conducted and written in 2003 by Lindsay Mason.

* [ ] indicates words not said by Mr. Alger

Home    People    Places    Site Info

Copyright ©2003    Pittsburg High School

All original graphics and the layout of this site is copyrighted 2003 © by Everwinter KHMP. If you wish to link to this site or to reproduce any content from this site, please contact Ben Pfeiffer at WebDesign@cmhccc.org

Do not reproduce any part of this site without permission.