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Back in Orange, Mass., he decided to return to the High School that he hadn't completed. That effort was short lived, because, even though he wasn't far separated in years from the other students, he was widely separated from them now in maturity. He couldn't tolerate their childish ways. He was now old enough to legitimately enlist. This time he chose the U. S. Army. He never looked back from then on. Before going to Fort Logan, Colorado, and the Second Engineers, he served at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Somewhere prior to his marriage to my mother when he was at Fort Logan, he was briefly married to a German named Margaret. I once saw a picture of her, but beyond the fact that they were divorced, I knew nothing. Mrs. Carrie G. Schliefarth was born in Belmond, Iowa on July 17, 1870. In 1897 she and Andrew J. Dooley were married. In 1900 they moved to Durango, Colo., and they later moved to Pueblo, Colo.. In 1913 Andrew died, and the family moved to Calhan and later Colorado Springs. Carrie Dooley passed away on September 28, 1945. The children of their marriage were Ruth, Carl, Alice, Jeanne', and Dorothy. My father courted my mother, when they lived on 14th St., long distance from Fort Logan. Her sister, Ruth Dooley, used to tell about driving for them in the back seat, and my father would ask her to go around the curves faster to encourage more togetherness. One time he was involved in a march from Fort Logan through Deckers down the Platte River to Lost Park on a mapping expedition for the Coast and Geodetic Service. Raymond Lloyd Bachelder married Dorothy Caroline Dooley on June 24, 1931 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Raymond Dooley Bachelder was born to them on April 21, 1932 at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. They took pictures of me at the Fabian Building on Fort Logan at a water hydrant, playing with the water. I had my dad's web pistol belt and holster slung over my neck. I doubt that his 45 was in it. Possibly, this is where my grandson, Blakelee Garrett, got his love of playing with a running hose. I don't remember living at the Fabian Building, my understanding is that we moved out of there because of the cockroaches. We moved to Littleton, into a two bedroom house. They had a dog named Poochie. He was a dalmatian. One day, my folks were startled by Poochie's yelping from the front yard. Upon investigation they found my teeth firmly implanted in the dog's ear. When asked, I justified my action by saying "Poochie bit me first!". Some military friends of my folks, the Nelsons, also lived in Littleton. There was an irrigation ditch running past the front of their house, they told about the fights that erupted over water rights. It was there that my folks acquainted me with the need for patience with mosquito bites, and that youthful pain in the side that grown ups always called growing pains. We did quite a bit of camping with the Nelsons, the Andersons, and the Martz family. Mrs. Nelson was from Texas and was just as tough as a burr under your saddle. I remember one time we were riding down a dirt road in the mountains after a heavy rain when we came to a place in the road where muddy water was washing across it. Everyone was in favor of turning around, all except Mrs. Nelson. She rolled up her slacks legs and waded in ahead of the car. We got across, but had the road been washed out, there might have been a search for her body downstream. Her claim to fame was her rhubarb pie, which was too tart for my taste. Chick Anderson lived on Fort Logan in a very small apartment across the parade ground from the hospital, in the same one story building as the McDermott's. I can remember laying on a cot in his apartment, looking at the unpainted beaver board walls, supposedly to take a nap. I was too interested in their planning for a forthcoming dance to sleep. They were talking about doing a strong man act with the smallest man they could find tearing a Denver Telephone Directory in two. They were going to cut all of the inside pages across the middle, leaving only the covers to appear intact. They also planned to call a preselected person from the audience to examine the telephone book and vouch for it's condition. I believe their act was well received. In later years after the war, Chick was a dispatcher for the State Patrol at Castle Rock, Colorado. He was a very nice person. -17-
