As I worked on historical information about the Central House and the Andrews Family, my dad “Bucky” Andrews is always mentioned as a footnote to history. He wasn’t a footnote. He was a talented, promising young man who chose to “check out” early. The stigma of his early demise has always created some mystery. There was also anger by all the people he left behind. So here goes.
Named Warren C. Andrews, the first born to Chalk and Myrna Andrews in Mukwanago, Wisconsin, in 1920, the family moved to Plymouth in 1922. I don’t know where the name “Bucky” came from. I always wanted to know what the middle initial “C” stood for and he told me “just C”. I have a sneaky feeling if we would find his birth certificate it would say Charles after his dad.
He was stocky like Christopher, very intelligent and physically gifted. He played football, was a pole vaulter in track and loved baseball. Baseball became a passion. He was good enough at baseball to get a contract to try out for the Chicago Cubs farm team in Eau Clare, Wisconsin. He befriended Andy Pafko who went on to play 15 years in the Big Leagues. Legend has it that Pafko could throw the ball from deep center field to the home plate on the line never bouncing the ball. Pafko had a cannon for an arm. My dad didn’t.
The baseball tryout was April of 1940. I was born in April. He was off chasing baseballs. My birth certificate says his occupation was a professional baseball player. Even though he didn’t make the Cubs, when he returned to Plymouth he played for the City team for many years (also Glenbulah team). In the mid 50’s, he was voted to the all time Sheboygan County baseball team in a poll conducted by the Plymouth Review.
Bucky was left handed. Damn! Left handed golf clubs, left hand baseball gloves and even his bowling ball was drilled different. That meant I couldn’t use any of his equipment. He wrote with a pen and his hand would curl over the top of the script so he didn’t drag the ink.
He went in the Army in 1941. He hated it but you did what you had to do. It was World War II. He served in the South Pacific. I think Jack was the result of a home leave and maybe even Addie. Jack was 1943. Addie 1944. Jerry Lee was after the War 1946. Addie May was named after a great-grandmother and always got special attention because she was the only girl in two generations. It wasn’t fair.
Bucky went to work at the Borden Company in accounting after the War and I think we even lived in Green Bay for a year or so. He came back to Plymouth and started to get involved at City Club. Like Paul, he went to school choosing Lakeland College paid for by the GI bill. He never finished his senior year but his specialty was accounting. His grades were A’s and B’s.
He ran for the Plymouth School Board twice and was ELECTED both times. He participated in the community. He was well known and well liked.
He met and dated Alice in High School. My impression is that it was special. If anybody has seen the movie Notebook, the young couple in there was infatuated with each other. I think that it is the way it was. Alice in high school was a knockout!
Sounds like he had it all. He did. He was on a roll. Great family, going to school. Promising career. Always maintaining a passion for baseball.
I can’t emphasize baseball enough. We would talk constantly about different players, calculate their batting averages and we’d argue who was best. His favorite? Ted Williams.
Growing up he coached our baseball teams: Chuck, Jack, and Jerry. Thank God they didn’t have girls teams at that time or Addie would have received special treatment again (she is the only kid who ever got a new bicycle). He coached me through Pee-Wee League. Jack and Jerry too. Later was American Legion teams.
And he smoked cigars. Two for a quarter (expensive at that time) Dutch Master Presidents. A buck a day. His spigot was always slightly open. Even today when I smell cigars, it reminds me of him.
He started his own “mobile” accounting business called Cunocar. It was a van outfitted like a mobile trailer. Counters, calculating machines, storage cabinets. “Have business, will travel”.
Near the end, he managed the Plymouth Foundry along with two cattle farms near Cascade. Jack and I always had to go out to the farms to feed the horses and cattle. He screwed up my dates with your mother.
When it came to anything to do with the kids and athletics, he was there. I played basketball and always would look up in the stands and see him there. I also got an earfull on things I should have done differently in the game. God I hated that. But he was there! He beat me regularly at “21”, a basketball game.
Bucky traveled to many, many football and basketball games with Art Mueller (Bill’s father) who was sports editor at the Plymouth Review. They stopped to have a drink or two on the way to the game and certainly on the way home. The referees always stunk. Believe it not they solved all the problems of the world on those trips. At least they thought they did.
My dad’s life never quite went the way he wanted. He was passionate about many things and really could never grab the brass ring. He missed on the baseball career, never quite finished his accounting degree and never achieved the business career he had wanted.
But he lived. He loved his kids and family and would fight for them. I know that many kids playing summer baseball still remember Bucky Andrews.
His life ended badly but he was loved. He was not a footnote.
Love,
Dad