Joseph Lester SCHOOLER

   Cause of death was Aorta Aneurism.

   General Notes:

!Joe was born on the homestead that his father Wilbur proved up just before he was married. He was nine years old when they left Hagerman. The team of horses that pulled their "mobile home", were called Paddy and Rowdy. Joe was helping around the camp and went to help with the horses when, unthinking, he walked in back of Rowdy. The horse kicked and hit Joe in both knees. He was hurt pretty bad, but his mother kept hot packs on him everyday and soon he was walking again. About a year later, he had an apendicitis attack that required surgery. His wound abcessed and he almost died from it. He was left with a bad scar that sunk into his side almost three inches. He was so weak that he had to stay in bed for a long time, and ended up never going back to school, until later in his life when he attended many mechanical training schools through the years. Joe was a musician all of his life. His family played for dances when he was very young and he started in at the age of four, playing the organ sitting on his sister Wanda's lap, so she could pump the organ for him while he played. Later in life, he started forming his own groups and played for dances for many, many years. He was a mechanic by trade and held a variety of jobs in that profession. But he also worked on the railroad for awhile and drove truck for awhile. Joe and Lila met when he was driving truck for her Uncle Theo Gregory and she was living with them while going to Business School. The day Joe received his draft notice they eloped to Weiser, Idaho so they could be married before he left. They took his sister Mary and Max LeGore along as witnesses. They drove Max's car and on the way home hit a cow. The cow got up and walked away, but they totaled the car. Lila was able to travel to three training camps with Joe; Merced, California, Reno, Nevada, and Augusta, Georgia, before he received his orders that he was being shipped overseas. They took the bus back to LaGrande and then he went back to his Company. The day he sailed out of New York Harbor, on his way to the British Isles, their first child, Elizabeth was born. She was a month old before he even knew she had been born and was two years old before he saw her for the first time. He never talked much about his experiences in the Army Air Corp. We do know that he landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in a Glider and was one of the few survivors of the ordeal. In later years I saw the movie "Battle of the Bulge" and wondering how accurate it was, I asked him if he knew much about it. He told me that he knew more about it than he ever had wanted to; he was there. Joe was a bit older than the average soldier so was a sargent by the time he was in France. He drove a truck load of men and one day they spent most of the day wandering around lost. Eventually they came across a farm and stopped to ask directions from the farmer. In talking to him, they found that they had spent most of the day behind German lines. Near the end of the war when they were involved in mop-up, they pulled in to the edge of a small village in Germany and Joe stopped the truck, got out and pulled down the name sign. He said after all the time they had been there, he didn't want the guys in his truck to know they were entering a village named Schooler. About 1959 Joe went to work for Inland Machinery a Caterpillar dealership as a mechanic. The company eventually sold out in LaGrande and moved to Yakima, Washington and Joe and Lila moved with them. Later moves took them to Pendleton, and Umatilla, Oregon before moving back to Yakima in 1985. !BIRTH:Idaho State Certificate of Birth #73945 !CENSUS:1920 Gooding Co., Idaho, Hagerman pg 43 !DEATH:Personal knowledge and I found him in the Social Security Death Index #540-12-8636. He died of an Aorta Aneurism.

   Marriage Information:

Joseph married Lila Leona LEWIS, daughter of George William LEWIS and Aletha Elizabeth POWERS, on 22 Aug 1942 in Weiser, Washington, Idaho. (Lila Leona LEWIS was born on 16 Apr 1923 in North Bend, Coos, Oregon, died on 19 Mar 1987 in Yakima, Yakima, Washington and was buried on 23 Mar 1987 in Tr.Hts.Mem.Park, Yakima, Yakima, Washington.) The cause of death was Ovarian Cancer.

   Marriage Notes:

Reference Number:9609