At 93 and 90, you might expect retired teachers Jim and Muriel Crawford to be talking about aches, pains and doctor appointments, or the damp weather shifting from Schroon Lake across the road to their log cabin home.
But Jim, who went to a one-room schoolhouse in Newburgh until sixth grade, talks about how they just inducted new officers at the latest Rotary Club dinner. He’s been involved with the group since 1983, helping with community outreach projects, and once serving as president and also secretary. His Rotary group started a Student of the Month program, helps with the local food pantry and instituted a student exchange program.
He talks about how fed up he and his wife are with Gov. Cuomo’s tactics against teachers. That’s why they’re both still going to union meetings with the Retiree Council 9 (Southern Adirondack District). Although they are former Monroe-Woodbury educators, they’ve been living in the North Country for more than 35 years, so they attend meetings there. Jim served as president of the Monroe-Woodbury Teachers Association — twice —and was very involved in the transition from different unions into New York State United Teachers.
Muriel, a retired school nurse educator, talks about the lectures she researched and presented at the recent southern Adirondack educational group of Torch International in which they are involved. At each meeting, someone gives a presentation. She’s spoken about the history of postcards; told the story of the Cadet Nurses; and gave a talk on Eskimo Culture (they have a daughter-in law who came from Alaska, 38 miles from Russia).
Soft-spoken, Muriel talks, too, about her participation in her union’s Retiree Council.
“They keep us up-to-date on legislation,” she said.
“We like to keep meeting people of our ilk,” said Jim, who has written letters to state representatives in support of pending bills or against detrimental policies. “I was really ticked off by Cuomo using education as a political football. It really burned me.”
Muriel noted how today’s school nurses have a more challenging job because of the number of medically fragile students now in school.
Inside their cozy wood home on a hill overlooking the lake, they share stories about how, through the Rotary exchange program, they have hosted students from Australia, Brazil and Japan, as well as professionals from Germany.
All this — despite the fact that Jim spent years in the Navy in WWII fighting against people from those same countries.
“Times have changed,” Muriel said matter-of-factly.
She locates a small glass jar with a piece of cotton in it. Resting on top of the soft material is small chip of stone from the Berlin Wall that their German guests gave them.
The husband from Germany told the Crawfords how much he admired John F. Kennedy because the former U.S. president tried to promote world peace; so Muriel went upstairs to her room, located a Kennedy half dollar, and gave it to him.
“He almost cried,” she recalled.
Jim was a science and industrial arts teacher in Stamford, and then spent the bulk of his career in Monroe-Woodbury teaching printing, woodworking, ceramics, weaving and more in an industrial arts program he put together at the school.
“I started by myself and had nine teachers in the department by the time I left,” said Jim, a raconteur with a sharp, detailed memory. “I developed a drafting program and I have about 36 (former students) who are architects.”
Muriel was a school nurse teacher at Monroe-Woodbury who worked with elementary school children. She received a citation from the American Red Cross because a grade-school student whom she had taught CPR to was able to resuscitate and save her cousin from drowning.
The war impacted both their lives as they each chose to serve their country. Muriel became a student nurse and then joined the Cadet Nurse Corp. She attended nursing school in Poughkeepsie. When she was capped, half of her class went to serve in the Army Hospital and the other half, including her, stayed at Vassar Hospital. Although she served in the Corp and wore the cadet nursing uniform, she was not granted veteran status.
Nurse Muriel Crawford
For nine years, Jim also worked with adult students in continuing education for Orange County Community College.
As a union member who worked on NYSUT’s Resolutions Committee, and as an active teacher, Jim said he appreciated the “interaction of professionals on curriculum and the overall education picture … and to be able to make a recommendation as a group.”
When he turned 90, the Crawford’s daughter presented Jim with several scrapbooks filled with yearbook photographs of former students who wrote to tell him how much he marked their lives. Many practice the skills they learned from him either as hobbies or as professionals. His daughter was able to get in touch with many of the students through social media.
While former students are plentiful, the story is not the same for Jim’s WWII comrades. Many veterans from that war have passed on. He holds onto a precious binder scrapbook with poems, songs and even Shanghai dance cards carefully preserved between plastic sheets.
“I was a freshman (at SUNY Oswego) when Pearl Harbor occurred,” he said. “I went active on July 1, 1943.”
Jim was trained at diesel school in Richmond and then worked below deck for the Navy on coal-fired steamers, generators and engines. His first ship, an escort ship, was called the U.S.S. Koiner. It is similar to the historical U.S. Slater docked at the Hudson River port in Albany.
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Jim Crawford served on the U.S.S. Koiner
The Koiner escorted tankers in convoys, traveling to South America, Cuba and Aruba.
“The Germans had the Atlantic flooded with submarines. They were sinking a large number of ships a year—400 to 500—and there was a need for faster, more maneuverable ships,” said the gravelly-voiced Jim. The destroyer escorts, dubbed “the tin can Navy” were born. They had a shallow draft.
Jim also traveled to African, the Mediterranean and Italy.
While escorting tanker ships, off the Canary Islands, Jim’s ship encountered giant waves. The bow of the ship would get buried in the wave, and then at the mid-section the boat would drive forward.
“It was like an elevator drop. It went on for three days,” he said.
He then plowed the Pacific waters in the U.S.S. Greenwich Bay, an AVP41 seaplane tender. On both ships, since he was on the original crews, he received the status of plank owner.
On board the Greenwich Bay, off Okinawa, he recalled how high winds and forceful waves, rolling into tightly together from a typhoon, damaged the ship.
His crew had to go to China to dry dock and get the damage to the boat repaired. They were there for more than a month, still running generators and evaporators for the crew that still had regular duties on board. Some, like Jim, were assigned to shore patrol.
You might say he’s still on shore patrol – he’s still involved with the lake association for the east shore. For years, he and Muriel also conducted water-quality testing.
Today, the Crawfords stay in the day, stay informed and stay as curious as the velvet-striped chipmunks that scamper outside their home.
And by the way, about those doctor visits: Jim just went for his visit this first week of July. His doctor told him he didn’t have to come back until January.
-- Liza Frenette
(Jim and Muriel Crawford are members of Retiree Council 9)