NANCY SAM RUTH LYNETTE
rclubeck © 2015

These photos have been converted to black and white for use in Sam's memoir:

 Every Book Counts: The Stories of My Life

SAM AND RUTH
rclubeck © 2015

NANCY AND SAM
rclubeck © 2015

RUTH AND HELEN

RUTH AND HELEN

Could they be talking about the weekend the Chandler boys, Sam and Homer, went on vacation and Sam, at least, forgot to call home to tell Ruth he and Homer would be taking a few extra days?

SAM AND HOMER

Sam and Homer

When two brothers sit and talk.

 Do they remember days long past or

 do they talk about the days they have left? 

Perhaps they are talking about the weekend vacation 
they took together when they came back days late 
without calling home and Sam didn't understand why 
Ruth was mad at him.
In the days before cell phones.

From Every Book Counts: The Stories of My Life

Sam at age 27

On maturity

I entered adulthood in 1947 at age twenty-eight, going hook, line and sinker, some seven years after the legal age. And, I was ready for it. I had been on a mission, served in the army, and graduated from BYU. I had a profession and the offer of a full time job. At last, I ceased to be a youth looking for summertime jobs. I was on my own, an adult; fully developed and mature; my adolescence was gone forever.

- Samuel C. Chandler

Roger at age 25

This reflection got me thinking. Maturity has little to do with age, gender, or sexual experience. I was in school from 1955 to 1977. My University education went from 1968-1977. I had two summer jobs at home, and after that I worked year-round as a University laboratory assistant, teaching assistant, or instructor. I stopped living at home in 1972, and left Michigan never to return in 1973. I lived on my own, in my own apartment or house beginning in 1973. I purchased a car in 1976. I obtained my first University teaching position in 1977 when I was Twenty-seven. By then I had have at least five serious relationships where marriage was discussed. I’m not sure when I decided I was mature. Some would argue, never. I know in 1968 when I entered college was wasn’t, nor was I close at 21 years. Unlike Sam, I had no army experience (thankfully). 

In 1975, which as a great year, I was 25 and still not a reliable adult. I’m not sure, even in my first full time job, when I cut my hair, I was mature yet. Pretty sure not. Somewhere around 1980, I started to mature. In 1986 (at 36), I was close, and by 1992 (at 42), I had rounded the corner and joined the club. However, I didn’t get married until 2004 (at 54). 

What about you? When, if ever, did you become a ‘real’ adult?

Private Chandler a chapter in Every Book Counts: The Stories of My Life by Samual C. Chandler reads like Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues meets Brother Chandler (who is perhaps a Brother from another planet).

Sam in 1943

Radio Communications

Sam writes,

Stationed in England

To this day, I stand amazed at the type of life I lived while I was in the Army. Between the end of my basic training in Biloxi Mississippi, and the receipt of my permanent assignment in England, I lived in luxury hotels in Chicago and Atlantic City. Trained as a communications specialist and telephone operator, I was taken to England on the Queen Elizabeth, the largest luxury liner in the world. Stationed at Stoke on Tent in England, I was billeted in quarters that had been a tourist attraction in peacetime. Later while I was in Duxford and Fowlmere, I lived in comfortable barracks and worked in an assignment that placed no restriction on leaving the air base as long as I reported for duty as assigned. In the Army, I was allowed to take correspondence courses that counted for credits from Brigham Young University. I was also allowed unlimited use of the huge library that served all the colleges of the world famous Cambridge University, where I studied for the entrance exams I would later take at BYU, and I was allowed to visit The Fens and Wales where my ancestors came from so I could gather my family's genealogy.

This ending paragraph only begins to summarize the chapter entitled Private Chandler, in which Sam Chandler writes about his army and experience in World War II. 

For example, the paragraph doesn’t mention what Sam endured in basic training or in communication school. It doesn’t say his air base was bombed weekly, or mention traveling hours on a bike to the attend church at nearest LDS Ward in England. He omits the dances and 'date nights' arranged by his Lieutenant or dating English girls (including cousins) who were members of The Church. He omits his discussion of Army Language and all the ridicule he and other LDS men received for not drinking or smoking and for wearing garments. You don’t learn about all the KP and being forced to give 'sermons', or the nickname his Sergeants gave him “Young-boy.” 

To read these and Sam’s other life stories, you’ll have to wait and read Every Book Counts when it is released on Amazon this February or March.

Every Book Counts: The Stories of My Life, 

available from Amazon in March.

In Chapter 2 (My Ancestors) of Every Book Counts: The Stories of My Life, Sam Chandler writes that his genealogical research of his family names in England revealed that the Chandler men were in Sam’s words common men. He remarks he discovered no royalty in his family. 

However, in the Chapter on Mary Nancy Call and her father Nine Call, we learn that Mary Nancy and Nine are direct descendants of  Penelope Van Princis Stout, an early white settler of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Penelope was the daughter of Daughter of Baron John van Printzen and Penelope van Princis. 

Penelope was born in 1622 in Amsterdam, (present The Netherlands). Penelope came to America in 1643. She and her husband were shipwreck and attacked by Indians but she survived and lived to be 110. There is a coin commemorating her life and her story appeared in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. She is known as the Mother of Middletown 

Sam’s mother is the descendant of a Dutch Baron. Penelope Van Princis Stout is the 10^th great-grand mother of Lynette Chandler and her siblings.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope_Stout

http://searchingforpenelopestout.blogspot.com/