I met Samuel Randoph Donnell when I was sixteen and he was twenty-one. My sister Fern worked at Eulers drug store (La Crosse, Wisconsin) where there was a soda fountain. Tommy Hackner always came in for his shot of bromoselzer, and he and Fern became friends. It was through Fern that Tommy became friends with our family. Tommy liked to go shooting with my Dad, so it was not unusual that one time he brought his friend with him. Fern and I often went out shooting with our father, also. That friend happened to be Samuel Donnell, and I just happened to go out shooting that time with them. Sam worked at Skaff Dry Cleaners at the time. For some reason, Sam took a liking to me, though I wasn't sure why, as I was tall, thin, and gangly. He was as tall as me and dark and very handsome. He didn't have a car, so getting from his home on 922 State Street to our place on Barlow Street was quite an effort on his part. He may have ridden the bus at first, but he used my father's old bicycle later.
I car hopped at a root beer stand on South Losey, a couple of miles from my home. I rode my bicycle to and from that job. Sam would ride dad's bike to the root beer stand after my shift ended and escort me home. Often this would be at midnight when the stand closed. We did a lot of biking on our dates. And we also rode the bus to and from the movie theater in downtown La Crosse. I was eighteen and in my sophomore year of college when we married and twenty when Randy was born.
Sam at age five.
Sam was born October 5, 1927, in Oak Park, Illinois. He had a nurse, whom he called Googie, when he was born and I think, until he was five years old. His parents owned a cigar/tobacco and card shop in Oak Park. In the crash of 1929, they lost everything. Sam was about five when Sam, Sr. and Irma moved to La Crosse and into the other half of Aunt Lou's house on State Street. Sam, Sr. took a job with the Linker Hotel operating the elevator. In those days, there were no self-serve ones. There was an elevator accident in which Sam, Sr. was injured. I do not know the extent, as when I first come to know him, he was old and shuffling. He also had Parkinson disease with the usual hand tremors. Irma had been a third grade school teacher until she met and married Sam, Sr. She was thirty-five when he was born and Sam, Sr. was about fifty-five.
Sam is probably nine-ten years old. Sam, Sr. about sixty-five.
Sam was about 17-19 years old when this was taken. He had joined the Air Force when he was seventeen and mustered out when he was nineteen.
Irma was always concerned about "what the neighbors would think". So when son Sam bought a used 1939-40 Ford, he was asked not to park it on the street in front of the house. What would the neighbors think? Sam went along with his mother and parked in the back of the house by entrance of the alley. But we were both of the attitude of "who in the hell cares what the neighbors think".
After we were married (June 30, 1951) Sam took a job with the Trane company. That is where he met Clarice Hougan. Clarice and Al would become life long friends. (Al, who had childhood diabetes, died at the age of 40.) Sometime after that, the television station opened up and was in need of a staff photographer. Sam got the job. He had been an aerial photographer in the air force and continued his photography ventures after he got out. If you were to ask me if he had been married before, I would have to truthfully answer, yes ... to one Norma Breeden who lived in Indiana. According to her, her daughter, Rita, was Sam's daughter, born after a summer tryst at the Grand hotel where they both worked the year that he was seventeen and she nineteen. Both Sam and his mother vehemently denied his paternity, but Irma did dutifully pay the two dollars a week that Norma demanded in child support. Sam refused to pay and one time the sheriff paid him a visit to enforce the child support payments. Randy was a babe in my arms at the time. Money was short for Sam and me so I remain ever grateful for Irma's financial sacrifice. Rita got married at the age of sixteen.
Sam loved to hunt and shoot his guns. We went to the rifle range most Sundays, and he would go fox hunting on the weekends. One time when we were prairie dog hunting in Montana with my dad and his buddy, Myrt Williams, Sam was standing by a prairie dog hole when a rattlesnake appeared, coiled and ready to strike. Sam pulled his pistol and shot the snake dead. From that point on, we always called him Dead Eye Sam. He had a steady hand with a gun and a good eye with a camera.
It was through Sam and the good graces of Ed Hutchins that I was able to audition for television. Ed must have seen something, for after suggesting that I tame my heavy eyebrows, he gave me the opportunity. I was free lance and that was okay with me. Everything was live at that time and in black and white. I did intros for various tv shows (My Three Sons for one) and also did live commercials during the noontime show. (Sunbeam bread and the American Dairy Association for example) I did tame my eyebrows to the extent that Ed commented with approval that they looked like something out of the 30s. (The Jean Harlow look.) With Sam's help, I learned how to do makeup for black and white television. My television career lasted until late 1969 when after divorcing Sam in 68, I married Tom Guenther and moved to Hartland/North Lake, Wisconsin where Tom would take a job teaching math at Arrowhead High School and I would concentrate on being super mom.
This family picture was taken about 1965 during the height of my television career.
Sometime after our divorce, Sam moved to Montana where he married Rhoda. I think he was staff photographer for a newspaper. They divorce and he later married Ella. Sam was a heavy drinker, really an alcoholic. I am not sure how it all came about, but Randy and Sam traveled to Montana and brought their father back. I think he lived with his mother until she went to a nursing home. Then he moved to rooms in a motel on Highway 16. Irma died at 95 and he died at the age of 69. He is buried in the veteran's section of Mormon Coulee Cemetery, La Crosse, Wisconsin. She is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.
