My Father - John Boyd

He was born and raised at 306 Spencer Street, in Marion, Ohio. He attended George Washington Elementary School. At Marion Harding High School he was a part of the cooperative education program and worked as a machinist at the Marion Power Shovel Company. He graduated in 1945, and enlisted in the army in August of 1946 "to avoid the draft."

He married Betty Mosher, Jan 15th, 1947 and was very soon after sent to Augsburg, Germany assigned to the US Constabulary. He was assigned to the motor pool for the Headquarters company for the 5th Regiment.
	He said he worked very hard to make seargent so that mom could come over and live with him. He said a lot of the guys resented him working that hard. Presumably because it made them look bad. This is one of my favorite photos of him. Greasy dirty fingers and oil and grease on his jacket. He does have his wedding ring on. He never wore it in my life time. He explained that he'd seen a guy short circuit a truck battery through his wedding ring and it got red hot. It burned his finger severly and his other fingers as he struggled to get it off. So it was simply too dangerous to wear a ring. He kept it on his dog tag chain.

Once he was promoted to Sergeant, my mother was allowed to come over to Germany and they lived off base.

About a year after his arrival, the 5th Regiment was redesignated the 2nd Constabulary Regiment. Dad remembers it as the 2nd Cavalry Regiment as do others on the Constabulary Association Web site.

In the Spring of 1949, in order to fly home (rather than take a ship), he was attached to the US Air Force. He flew back to the States on "a four engine plane" (actually a Lockheed Constelation I have a photo of the plane), making a stop in Iceland and then landing at Westover Field in MA. His three years of service would not end until August of '49 and with no real assignment at Westover, he asked to be transferred to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. That was soon done and he spent the rest of his few months of service at Wright Patterson.

Once discharged, and back in Marion, he went to work for McDaniel Pontiac and soon decided to attend the State Veterans Vocational School in Troy, NY. Mom & Dad purchased a trailer and pulled it to Troy the week before school stared, hopping to find a place to stay. They did find an elderly couple in Watervliet, NY who allowed veterans to park their trailers on their property while attending college.

Dad graduated after two years as the valedictorian. They moved back to Marion and dad got a job as a maintenance mechanic with BF Goodrich in Green Camp.

Shortly, they purchased a small block home at 990 Woodrow Ave. in Marion. The house is still there today although it has been enlarged dramatically. This is the house that they lived in when all three children were born.

In 1960, they moved into a rental house on Dunbar Road while they had a house built on a lot around the corner on Hoch Road. They moved into the new house in the Spring of 1961.