A Word About My Father

We called him Daddy, not Dad -- it's the custom in the Deep South where he was born and raised, and Daddy is all I ever knew him by. His family and all of his friends from the beginning called him "L.B.", for Leonard Baker Cresswell; that's another southern custom -- to call boys by the initials of their given names. L.B. was born in Lexington, Mississippi on July 18, 1901, the second surviving child (of several children -- the others were either stillborn or died in infancy) and only son of cotton farmers there on the Mississippi Delta. His father Oliver had inherited "The Place" from his father, and was 12 years old when he was left on that farm to take care of his mother and sisters while his father went off to fight in the Civil War.

When Oliver's father left for The War, he told Oliver where the last two bottles of quinine were buried in the yard, saying Oliver had to keep them a secret so no one, including the invading Union Army, would steal them. Quinine was critical at that time in that place -- malaria was all too common, and the only relief from the frightening and dangerous symptoms was quinine. Oliver doled out the medicine to his mother and sisters until it ran out; his youngest sister, however, was the last to contract malaria and by the time she fell ill, the quinine had been used up and she died in Oliver's arms. He "felt badly" about that for the rest of his life -- that he couldn't save her, that he alone, at twelve years old, had been responsible for the life and health of a dozen people and had failed to keep all of them safe. L.B.'s heritage from Oliver and Oliver's father, therefore, was one of a strict code of ethics: take care of the women and children, don't lie and don't quit. It was a code that was driven home surely and forever, by the men who meant the most to L.B. in his life.

L.B. was very handsome -- blond and blue-eyed -- and pretty spoiled by his mother Ella and his sister May (who was thirteen years older than he). The family had tragically lost so many children, and knew that L.B. would be the last child born to them, that they really couldn't bear not to give him anything he wanted. Fortunately, his father Oliver, as well as the farm's foreman Aaron, gave him his lessons in how to be a man, frequently ignoring the begging by his mother to let the boy do as he pleased. For example, Ella adored L.B.'s beautiful blond curls and by the time he was five years old, they were past his shoulders and carefully brushed and curled every morning. Oliver finally couldn't stand it; five years had gone by and his only son was looking like the portrait Blue Boy while living on a working farm in the fairly wild country of the Mississippi Delta. As Daddy recounted later, "My daddy put me in the wagon, with my mother weeping on the seat next to him, and drove us into town to the barber. My mother cried all the harder, and by the time we got there and I found out what was happening, I started to cry as loud as she did. Hell, the BARBER was crying before we were through there. Daddy was unmoved. I never had hair longer than an inch or so from that day forward; it was ridiculous in that heat, and my working that hard, to have it any other way."



After L.B. graduated from college, he entered the Marine Corps, where he pursued his career as an officer for thirty-two years. He retired as a major general, with many decorations including the Navy Cross (the second highest military award after the Medal of Honor):

• Navy Cross
• Awarded for actions during the World War II
• The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant Colonel Leonard B. Cresswell (MCSN: 0-3940), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism and distinguished service as Commanding Officer of the First Battalion, First Marines, FIRST Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces in the Tenaru Sector, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on the night of 21 August 1942. Although dense jungle and difficult terrain made it impossible for the tanks assigned to his command to effect a crossing of the river, Lieutenant Colonel Cresswell advanced with his Battalion to the other side of the Tenaru and, by the skillful disposal of his men over a large area, succeeded in annihilating the Japanese force between the Ilu and the Tenaru Rivers with a minimum loss to his unit. His brilliant leadership and fine tactical judgment were decisive factors in the accomplishment of a vital mission and reflect the highest credit upon Lieutenant Colonel Cresswell and the United States Naval Service.

Daddy was a charming, intelligent, strong, brave man. I never knew anyone who didn't like him, from "his men" (the Marines under his command that he thought of as his sons), and his Mississippi childhood friends, such as the writer William Faulkner and U.S. Senator John Stennis, to his drivers and aides, to every single woman who ever met him. He told wonderful stories, he remained handsome all of his days.

I've know other men as charming, others as strong, others as honorable, but not a single one with all of those things together in one delightful person.

Daddy wasn't around much when I was growing up -- I think he didn't know what to do with three daughters, and anyway Nani (my mother) seemed to have the situation under control. Of course she really had no choice, since her husband was away so much -- to war, to temporary duty, to hunting or fishing or to the golf course. On the other hand, at those times when he was available to us, I adored him; we'd argue often as I grew older and became kind of a smart mouth (imagine that!), and while my sisters seemed to be a little afraid of Daddy, I mostly stood up to him unless his temper got out of hand. At those times all of us ran for our bedrooms and stayed there until the storm had passed. He had a short, hot temper, and while he never once spanked me (spanking kids was fairly common in those days), he could yell and swear very impressively and we just made ourselves scarce until he cooled down (which never took very long).

Daddy died relatively young, from complications of lifelong malaria and a recurrence of it during the war that weakened his heart. He was sixty-four when he died, and I was just twenty-two. I miss him to this day; there just aren't many men like him any more, and that's a shame. You kids are lucky to have him as an ancestor, and you need to try to remember what I remember best: Don't lie, don't quit, and keep a really sharp sense of humor. That's how I honor my daddy, and it's worked pretty well for me so far.
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Guam

In 1946 we went to Guam (if you look on a globe you can see that Guam, one of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean, is closer to Southeast Asia and the Philippines than it is to the United States, in other words it's really, really far away from this country). My father had flown there already on a military plane, and Nani, my older sisters May and Mia, and I took a train across the country, from Virginia to Long Beach, California, and then we sailed on a Navy ship across the Pacific Ocean to Guam, which my father called "the paradise of the Pacific." All I know about New Canaan and Quantico is what I have been told, but I can remember living on Guam, and I can feel its breezes to this day when I go to any place tropical.

When we arrived there, the war against the Japanese had only been over for about a year and a half, and there were still some Japanese soldiers who didn't know it was over hiding up in the hills. Once one of them came down from his cave, went into the admiral's garden next door to us to find something to eat, and the Marines came and took him away. I wasn't afraid, because the soldier was really thin and didn't look very dangerous, but my sisters and parents made a pretty big deal about it. (Plus, I haven't been afraid of anything much in my life, really. I have always felt safe, and strong enough to handle most situations. When I was little, there was the problem of my sisters: I wasn't afraid of them, but I learned to avoid them whenever possible -- they didn't seem to like me and made things tough for me whenever we had to spend time together. On the other hand, I knew that my mother and father loved me, so it all worked out in the end.)

While on Guam, I remember a very big typhoon (the Japanese word for hurricane), during which I was escorted -- pushed, really -- very quickly by the wind at my back, across our yard and into the safety of our house, while next door Admiral Pownall's roof was blown off. There were dozens of jungle rats all over the house when the typhoon was over; they had come up from the flooded jungle just below the cliff our house sat on, and they were everywhere -- in our closets, under the duck-board in my shower, even in our clothes drawers. My father and mother took care of them somehow -- I've never wanted to know more than that -- and not surprisingly I've had an issue with mice and rats all of my life. Don't like snakes either, by the way, but there's weren't any snakes on Guam.

In spite of all this, I loved being there -- I loved the constant fragrance of flowers everywhere we went. I liked being able to swim in a lagoon or in the ocean whenever I wanted. (I was never taught to swim, I just did it naturally and I loved it.) I had a lot of my father's attention -- I didn't know him very well because he'd been away at the war almost all of my life, but he tried very hard to make me his friend, and I was pleased by that. I remember his driving me in his Jeep down to the beach one day; he put me on his lap and let me steer the Jeep for as long as I wanted. We went really fast and I drove us in big loops, up and down the sand, into the water, then back up the beach. When we left to go home, Daddy said not to tell my mother about it, or we'd both be in trouble.

I didn't have very many toys, but I had my first best friend, Ada Shepard, right next door, and I had a swing set. My family was pretty happy there; I have seen some old family movies of that time, and we all looked happy. My parents and sisters were CERTAINLY happy that the war was over, and that Daddy had lived through it to come home to us. We were only there for a year and a half, but it was a good experience for us all for recovering from a terrible war.

Snow and War

When I was born (February 15, 1943) my father was nine thousand miles away. He was an officer in the Marine Corps and the world was in the middle of a terrible war; his job took him to the Island of Guadalcanal, somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, where he was fighting for his life, and for all our lives as well.

While my father was away, my mother and my two sisters May and Mia moved to a house on Silvermine Road in New Canaan, Connecticut (not very far from where you live now), together with my mother's sister Rowan, whose husband was in the Navy and also away at the war in the Pacific. Aunt Rowan had her first baby, my cousin Jared Howard, two weeks before I was born. I have always thought of Jared as my twin because of how we started our lives together in the snow in New England.

There were two snowstorms, one after the other, at the time I was born; in the first one, Nani (the name she was later called by your dad and her other grandchildren) was shoveling snow, fell and chipped her front tooth on a rock hidden in a snowdrift. Because of the second blizzard on my birthday she didn't have time to get her tooth capped and she was embarrassed to be seen with a big beautiful new baby, herself looking like a jack o' lantern. I think she was probably beautiful at the time -- all mothers of new babies are beautiful. (Your mother was simply lovely when each of you was born; your dad was mostly grinning.)

Our next door neighbor Bill Prescott was a true friend to Nani there in New Canaan; he had an important job in New York City as principal book reviewer of the New York Times, and he commuted there every day by train. He kept his car ready, though, and full of gas (which was hard to get in wartime), and he promised to get Nani to the hospital whenever she needed him to do so. It was a tough promise to keep, since she called him at one in the morning, in the second of those two terrific blizzards, but he came through like a champ and drove her (us!), in miserable conditions, to the next town of Norwalk, where the hospital was. He became my godfather, and my middle name (Prescott) was given to me in honor of his great gallantry.

Anyway, there we all were in New Canaan, Connecticut -- aunts, mothers, sisters, cousins -- with summer vacations on Martha's Vineyard.

When World War II was over, my father continued his career in the Marine Corps and our family routine picked up where it left off, moving all over the country and beyond, just about every year or two. I never knew anything different, could never imagine living in one place for very long. It takes me longer to move now -- 3 to 5 years! -- but I still have the habit of going out to see some part of the world I don't know anything about.