WAUSA – Gerald “Gerry” Schumacher is getting ready to mark a major milestone in 2024.
The Wausa man will celebrate his 100th birthday on Jan. 22. A card shower is being held for him and birthday wishes may be sent to him at Countryside Villa, 803 Vivian St., Apt. 109, Wausa, NE 68786.
“It’s just another day,” Gerry said of his birthday. “I’ve had a good life.”
Gerry’s life started on a farm south of Crofton, when Anna Schumacher delivered twin boys with the help of a midwife on Jan. 22, 1924. The doctor came by later to check on Gerry and Jerome, and advised Anna to keep them warm for they would not live long.
Surprisingly, the boys survived and were raised in the Crofton area, helping their parents with the chores of weeding and feeding cattle, hogs and chickens.
Gerry and Jerome’s grandfather had donated property for a public school to be built on, so they walked a mile and a half to school every day.
By the age of 10, they were expected to help train horses their father, Anton Schumacher, raised. The boys rode bareback, even the draft horses, because they could not afford a saddle. They helped drive cattle down the chutes for branding.
Gerry recalled his father enjoyed having his sons helping him out on the farm as they grew up.
“There was always competition,” Gerry said. “He’d tell us a job to do and both of us went (for it). The competition was on all the time. There was always a job to do.”
As Gerry and Jerome grew older, they worked on other farms and used the money to buy clothes and shoes. They were still expected to farm at home.
Gerry remembered he and his father would put four draft horses on a cultivator to cultivate corn. They did not own a tractor.
He also recalled his father taught him to always work hard and do a good job on whatever he was doing.
World War II found Gerry drafted and assigned to duty as one of about 300 crew members aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Stormes DD-780 as an electrician’s mate third class from 1944-46.
The U.S.S. Stormes was a new 300-footlong destroyer ship at the time that was launched out of Seattle, Wash., in early 1945.
“I was a farm boy on a ship, and that was great,” Gerry said. “It was something else.”
His job for the first six months on the ship was as a deckhand. He eventually joined the engineering department and learned how to become an electrician.
He recalled the Battle of Okinawa, Japan, in May 1945 when a kamikaze – a Japanese airplane loaded with explosives that deliberately crashed into an enemy target – hit the front end of the ship, killing 30 men and resulting in severe fires and a large hole in the hull that led to flooding the stern of the ship.
“We got sent over to Okinawa,” Gerry said. “It was a hotspot then. That’s where the (Japanese) nailed us over there. They caught us with a suicide plane. We were supposed to be protecting our country against suicide planes.”
Temporary structural repairs were made to the ship at a floating dry dock in the region. Once those were finished, the ship headed east across the Pacific Ocean and through the Panama Canal, and then north to New York.
From there, the ship continued north past Canada and Greenland and traveled above the Arctic Circle on a test run during the winter.
“The war was over, so they were testing out these newer ships,” Gerry said, noting temperatures became so cold at times that the ship’s gun mounts would become frozen shut.
The ship eventually returned to the United States, and he was honorably discharged from the Navy in June 1946 at the New York Navy Yard in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn.
Gerry returned to Nebraska and found work at the Farmers Union. While working as an electrician, he continued working on farms.
He met Wausa native Betty Anderson when she delivered meals to a threshing crew he was working with.
On Nov. 24, 1948, in Hartington, the couple were married during a break in the historic winter of 1948-49 when northeast Nebraska and other parts of the state were constantly slammed with snow. The first significant snowstorm hit five days before they tied the knot, and the wedding dance was canceled due to inclement weather.
“Whenever the snowplow went up the highway, we went to town,” Gerry said, noting it was usually a tractor with a blade clearing snow off the roads at that time.
While working for Betty’s father, Francis Anderson, at the Pleasant Valley Cafe, Gerry and Betty’s first two children were born – Frances Kay in 1949 and Tommy in 1950.
In 1951, Gerry and Betty moved to Denver, Colo., for work as an electrician. A second daughter, Gloria, was born to the couple that same year.
Gerry worked a full-time job as an electrician during the day from 1951-56 and a part-time job at night for Pacific Intermountain Express, or PIE, from 1951-54. Gerry and Betty welcomed Mary, a third daughter, in 1954. He then found work through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers labor union at several different sites in the Denver area. Their second son, Anthony, was born in 1956.
A downturn in employment in 1958 prompted Gerry to sign up for a job at a military communications site in Greenland to pay for his family’s new home and car. Eight months later, he returned home to his wife and children. Fulfilling his dream of raising his children on a farm, Gerry rented 11 acres in the Welby, Colo., area on the north side of Denver. He and Betty were able to send their children to a parochial school and to grow a large garden. They also both volunteered in church activities, while he worked full time as an electrician.
Finished with raising their children and gaining several grandchildren, Gerry and Betty moved to nearby Commerce City, Colo., where they both volunteered several years for Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7386. Their oldest son, Tom, died in a car accident in 1975.
After retiring and recovering from a stroke, Gerry and Betty moved to Northglenn, Colo., on the north side of Denver, where they volunteered for VFW Post 7945.
Having lived in Colorado for about 50 years, the couple returned to northeast Nebraska and lived in Wausa, renewing their previous lives with friends and relatives.
Gerry remembered Betty was not in favor of moving back to Nebraska because she was content with their life in Colorado.
“She had two sisters here and I had two brothers,” Gerry said, noting their relatives were the main reason they returned to Nebraska. “We were back here all the time (to visit).”
Maintaining their home and vehicles and attending family celebrations, reunions and senior center activities, including many pitch games, made the next 20-plus years fly by for Gerry and Betty.
In 2016, Gerry had a heart valve replacement at the age of 92. He was able to return to many of his previous activities, including walking a mile around Wausa every day.
Gerry and Betty’s second son, Anthony, died in 2019. Gerry devoted his time supporting and caring for Betty in their home. They were married for nearly 73 years until she died on April 14, 2021, at the age of 94.
As he approaches his 100th birthday, Gerry enjoys relaxing in his comfortable armchair and looking every day at photos of Betty and the rest of his family that decorate the top of his dresser and hang on the walls of his home. He also attends St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Crofton.
“I’ve had a very good life,” Gerry said. “I tried to do my best job on everything I ever did, I know that.”
