A man for many reasons
A man for many reasons
By ALLAN TINKER
There are many reasons to call someone a man; Harold Jenner can claim at least five.
Jenner’s latest claim would be his recognition for 60 years of firefighting for the Goodrich Fire Dept. He received that award from Goodrich Fire Chief Mike Gesellchen at the last meeting, on July 27.
The reasons pile up: there are the years of marriage to Rosie and working for his family; gardening and woodcrafts; carpentry and house demolitions; collecting eagles and handmade relics, such as a windmill; and the many, many things Jenner has done for his community and his country in his service in World War II and his membership in the American Legion since that time.
The story starts as most others, with a new addition to the Emil and Rose (Meuhlbier) Jenner family. Rose died when Harold was just two and one-half years old. His father remarried later, to Lydia Mueller. Harold had no brothers but four sisters: Eleanor Task and Edna Mindt, both deceased: Loretta Redding, Rapid City, and Virginia Evans, Rapid City. Virginia is Lydia’s daughter, Harold explained.
When he was school age, Jenner attended the Brakel School #1 for the first year and then the family moved to Kulm where he graduated eighth grade. This was his step-mothers’ home area and they left from their home south of Howard Erdmann’s farm on a Monday, early a.m. and arrived, with hay rack and team, one week later in Kulm.
His father worked a dray line at Kulm and did odd jobs as police man and at the elevator. In the early 1940’s, he became a carpenter at the airbase in Rapid City.
Harold had odd jobs right out of school, then joined the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). Then came the turn in military service in the US Army, where he was “mostly” the driver for big guns, a “prime mover.” Later he became a motor sergeant and took care of vehicles, and was discharged at the rank of staff sergeant after four years. He received his basic training at Ft. Sill, OK and Fort D.A. Russell in Marfa, TX.
In 1942, he married Rose in Rapid City, SD, and after the army service, they purchased the Tuttle Café with her two sisters and operated it with them for two years. Tuttle was Rose’s hometown and they had met when Harold worked for a sister and brother-in-law. Then they moved to Goodrich.
