Growing Up

Hal Schoen spent his childhood in the 1940s and '50s with his 12 brothers and sisters on the family farm in west-central Ohio a few miles from the Indiana border. He recalls many chores on the farm. When his Dad sold his workhouses and bought a tractor, Hal eagerly awaited his chance to drive it.

When the Case arrived, I jumped up on the seat and immediately reached for the foot pedal on the right I assumed to be the clutch. I could reach it with ease, but when I pushed as hard as I could it hardly budged. Seeing my bitter disappointment, Dad smiled and pointed out I had pushed on a foot brake. The Case had a hand-operated clutch, and I soon realized I could operate it efficiently. It was a joyful moment for me, but I didn't foresee it marked the beginning of thousands of hours over the next ten or twelve years behind the wheel of the Case; hauling manure, plowing, tilling, planting, cultivating corn, mowing, tedding and side-raking hay, mowing grain stubbles, baling straw and hay, loading loose hay, moving wagon-loads of grain, hay and straw, and on and on. (p. 31)

The farm also served as a huge playground for young children, and Hal relates many fond memories of play on the farm including sports that he and his siblings enjoyed - baseball, softball and basketball. No one in the family before him had attended college, and he had little encouragement to consider it himself.

Like many men in rural areas in his generation, my Grandpa Schoen was critical of people who wasted their time on books and school when there was farm work to be done. He often made fun of my siblings and me if he saw us reading a book, calling us "bookworms." Before the practice violated truancy laws, he made sure his sons quit going to school each spring when the weather allowed the work in the fields to begin. To him going to school was a waste of time, and everyone should quit as soon as possible. He was especially adamant about girls in this regard, since in his outspoken view they were just going to get married, raise kids, and do house work anyway. They may as well get started doing so as soon as they could. Mom and Dad were not as dubious about the value of education as Grandpa but, like American society of the 1940s and 1950s, they were less supportive of education for their daughters than for their sons. (p. 97)

As Hal grew older and taller circumstances fell into place that made it possible for him to attend the University of Dayton on a provisional basketball scholarship.

I doubt there was ever a college freshman more homesick than I was for the first few weeks that Fall of 1959. Born and raised on our family farm, I had never lived anywhere else. I had very rarely slept in a bedroom other than the one I shared for years with my brothers. Life in a city, even in a small town, was completely foreign to me. I had traveled further than a hundred miles from home just once, on my senior trip. It is still painful for me to recall my loneliness and misery, beginning on the first day of registration. (p. 137)

Hal was successful in his class work at UD, and with tenacity and some good luck, he became a starting forward on legendary coach Tom Blackburn's first and only NIT championship team in 1962.

Back home, my parents and younger siblings were glued to the family's fuzzy, black-and-white 19-inch t.v. for all the NIT games. Pat recalled, 'After the final game we went outside and ran around the house yelling and screaming. It was a thrill for all of us. What a great memory ' When the team returned on Sunday March 23rd, Mom, Dad, and a carload of siblings were in the crowd at the Dayton airport. After ten days in New York City competing in Madison Square Garden, I was struck the moment I saw them by the vast difference between the world I had just left and that of my childhood. (p. 180)