Ernest Graves
Q:
What kind of a relationship did you have? Did you see him much?
A:
Oh, yes. We were very close. When I was growing up, his office hours were pretty
regular. He walked to work. We lived at 1835 Phelps Place, N.W., in Washington,
which is just south of where Connecticut Avenue crosses Rock Creek Park. He walked
from there down 21st Street to the Munitions Building, which was next to the
Reflecting Pool. His walking companion for several years was then Major, later
[Lieutenant] General, [Raymond A.] Spec Wheeler. Major Wheeler lived in an
apartment house just around the corner from the apartment building in which we lived.
He would walk up the hill and join my father, and they would walk together to the
office.
I knew this because I walked down this same hill on my way to school and very often
when I was going to school, Major Wheeler would be walking up to meet my father and
we would pass and I would say hello. So he knew me from the time I was a schoolboy.
Q:
Where were you going to school then?
A:
I was going to Saint Albans School, and I would go down to Massachusetts Avenue
to get the bus to ride out to the cathedral.
My father would walk home at night. But he
had regular hours. The only trips he went on
were every spring and every fall--in the
spring the high-water inspection trip and in
the fall the low-water inspection trip on the
Mississippi River. Each would take about a
week. Other than that, he was pretty much at
home and I saw a lot of him. I would see him
every morning and every evening, and then on
the weekends we would do things together.
He had been a great football player and he
was always very interested in sports. We
would do things--ball games, baseball, and
football--together. We were always building
projects, even though we lived in a tiny
apartment. He built me a fort for toy soldiers
out of concrete. He cured the concrete in the
bathtub. We had an electric train which was
spread all over the floor. All these things we
Ernest Graves, Sr., as a football coach, from the
did together. So I was very close to him.
frontispiece of The Lineman's Bible.
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