Bob & Earl: An American Friendship

Copyright © 2010 by J. Ronald Castell

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-7893-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-7894-2 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-7895-9 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/06/2010

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Bob & Earl

Chapter Two

Beginnings

Chapter Three

The War

Chapter Four

Wow! We’re Getting Married!

Chapter Five

After The Honeymoon

Chapter Six

The Kids

Chapter Seven

Titans Of Industry

Chapter Eight

The Church Grapefruit Line:

Bob & Earl Meet

Chapter Nine

People Asked Us For Assistance

Chapter Ten

The Jersey Shore

Chapter Eleven

The Sunset

Chapter Twelve

It’s A Beautiful Day In Palmyra!

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Prologue

I have known Earl Smith and Bob DiMattteo for nearly 30 years. For at least 25 of those 30 years I have walked away from our dozens of conversations asking myself what would it take to capture this pair of pals on video or in a book or magazine article. I wanted Earl and Bob to sit in for all those seniors who participated in the making of the greatest country ever.

What started as an idle thought buried in cocktail party chatter transformed into dozens upon dozens of hours of research and interviewing. We never walked out of an interview session without new information and undiscovered stories.

I can’t wait for the movie!

-Ron Castell, husband of Barbara (Smith) Castell, son-in-law of Earl Smith

Chapter One

Bob & Earl

In the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country stands the town of Palmyra, population: 7000. Surrounded by rolling farms with countless small communities dotting the region, Palmyra abuts Hershey, famously known as Chocolatetown USA. The two towns’ interests are closely aligned with Hershey providing employment, recreation, culture, entertainment, sporting events and first class medical care for Palmyra residents. Palmyra remains sheltered from the metropolises of Philadelphia and Baltimore that rise barely one hour away. But its residents enjoy many of the advantages of city life in a small town environment: the famous Hershey Park with over 60 rides, the Hershey Theater with touring Broadway shows, four prestigious golf courses, the four-star Hotel Hershey and Chocolate Spa, the Hershey Park Stadium and Giant Center with star-studded concerts and sporting events, and Penn State’s Medical Center.

Settled centuries ago by Protestants from Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries, Palmyra and the rest of southeastern Pennsylvania comprise one of America’s most historic and important regions.

It is also the home of Bob DiMatteo and Earl Smith, best friends for more than 60 years. Bob and Earl are role models to many people, and anachronisms to others.

They served their country during World War II, then moved to Palmyra and became pillars of the community. Although they were never politicians, they have led their adopted community by volunteering for countless civic and church activities and soaring to the tops of their professions while remaining strong family men.

Brimming with good old-fashioned values, they are members of The Greatest Generation, the people who made America strong. With steely focus, Bob and Earl, and their peers across the United States, built a better nation, one community at a time.

Now in their 90s, they stand heroic in their humility.

Bob and Earl were born during a time when many Americans were farmers who listened to the radio for entertainment and were just becoming acquainted with the Model T. They have embraced technological innovations, from television to wireless communication, but not all changes have been good. Church attendance has dropped drastically. Civic participation has dwindled. Instead of helping one’s neighbors, younger adults today seem to ignore them.

Every institution was important for these two men, Phil Smith said about his father and Bob. Life in Palmyra was all about church, work, community, whatever the projects. And, of course, the family. My dad and Bob were an important part of the infrastructure of the community.

A lot of times people asked us for assistance because we were successful, Bob said at the age of 92. Other times you picked up a newspaper and read that a boy got into trouble for something and you asked yourself: Why? What happened to that boy?

Bob and Earl would help that boy.

The friendship of Bob DiMatteo and Earl Smith is remarkable not just for its longevity and the richness of their volunteer work, but also for how their lives converged.

Bob grew up as the second of five children born to Italian immigrants in Boston and Earl grew up as a Lutheran with a divorced mother in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.

Both grew up during The Great Depression and worked at age 12, even though they also went to school and lived in relatively prosperous families. The era’s strong work ethic had conditioned the boys into believing that employment was as good and natural as breathing. After all, according to the old proverb, Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

Without knowing each other, Bob and Earl became the first in their families to attend college and then both served in the army during World War II, reaching the rank of master sergeant. In the summer of 1946 both married young women from the small town of Palmyra, Pennsylvania. The newlyweds moved to be near Bob’s and Earl’s family in Boston and Richmond, but less than one year later they settled in Palmyra. As outsiders they threw themselves into their adopted community.

It was in the second year of their marriages that Bob and Earl, with their wives nearby, met in a church grapefruit line. The men became best friends, as did their wives and children, highlighted by 30 years of summer vacations together in Ocean City, New Jersey, the Jersey Shore. They shared Christmas Eves for many years, melding together children, in-laws and grandchildren who remain the closest of friends today. As Bob and Earl aged, their children carried the family torch of togetherness and friendship arranging all-family gatherings to enjoy summers at the beach, celebrations of the Fourth of July in Vermont and Thanksgivings in Virginia and Vermont.

Over the decades Earl rose from high school teacher to CEO of a bank that went through five mergers and Bob founded a company that today is the region’s largest food manufacturer. Earl became a life deacon at the Palmyra Church of the Brethren where Bob also served as a deacon. Bob and Earl were both presidents of Rotary where Bob had a perfect attendance record of more than 30 years. They were both active in a myriad of other clubs and groups, while remaining committed to their wives and children.

By 2010, Earl had been long retired from the bank, and Bob had sold his company to his daughter. The two men’s volunteer work has slowed and their families have suffered deaths, but they remained as devoted and optimistic as ever.

Chapter Two

Beginnings

Earl

Earl Samuel Smith was born on December 16, 1919 in his grandparents’ bedroom at The Wallick House in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. His grandmother Annie owned the four-story hotel; his mother Elsie managed it; and Earl lived between there and the Big House until the end of college.

I was told my grandmother carried me to the third floor shortly after birth so I might rise high in life, he said with a laugh.

But first he had to survive infancy.

Before I was six months old I was near death’s door as a result of falling down the cellar steps in the arms of one of the kitchen help. I was in convulsions for some 16 hours.

His grandmother wanted him to be baptized right away but the family’s Lutheran minister was out of town. They found the minister from nearby St. John’s Reformed Church who performed the baptism.

With a population of 5,000 residents and almost a dozen churches, the small town of Red Lion was renowned for its furniture and tobacco industries. When Earl grew up, local workers manufactured Philco radio cabinets, dining and living room furniture and hand-rolled 20 percent of America’s cigars.

Folks in Red Lion had a strong sense of self-sufficiency, Earl said. It grew from the generations of pioneers who depended mainly on themselves to conquer the wilds.

The vast majority of Red Lion residents were Republicans. Democrats, with their beliefs in social welfare, were not embraced. If a person needed help, family, friends and church were expected to give it, not the government. The best way out of The Great Depression of 1929 to 1939 was by working hard, not taking handouts.

When FDR came on the radio with his fireside chats, we turned them off, Earl said. My grandparents were not fans of Roosevelt. The Democrats were too liberal on everything.

In the 1930s a cigar strike affected the community and gave Earl, the future banker, much to think about.

The alley in back of our hotel was the scene of much of the activity, he said. The Western Union office was located in my grandfather’s office at the garage and I was there when the ticker tape spewed out the order for the state constabulary to break up the strike. I rode my bike to deliver the order to the fire hall, which was serving as their headquarters. The troops moved in with teargas and broke up the strikers. There were hard feelings that took years to resolve.

Earl’s parents divorced when he was four and his father moved 50 miles away. They saw each other only one more time, decades later.

Fortunately, Earl had a strong and supportive extended family. His mother’s brother, Sam, had four daughters—Bette, Charlotte, Fern and Marguerite. Earl and Dick were close to their cousins, sharing many childhood adventures. They were particularly fond of going to their cousins’ cabin where Earl’s Uncle Sam dammed up the creek to provide a great swimming hole for the children’s summer pleasure. Earl fondly recalls trips the families took together to Washington DC, Hershey Park and Atlantic City.

Growing up with a divorced mother was extremely rare at the time. As a boy Earl took on a lot of responsibilities and that maturity, plus a strong work ethic, led to his first job at the age of 12. A visiting representative from The Curtis Publishing Company convinced his mother to let him sell magazines.

We enlisted the services of a group of kids in the lower grades, enticing them with various prizes depending on the number of magazines they sold, Earl recalled. All was going well until the school’s principal intervened. In his judgment they were too young to be going door-to-door.

A compromise was that a kid had to be in the 6th grade or higher to sell magazines.

Soon the