HawkinsFoley.com Family Website: Photos and Memories
Howard Hawkins' Memoirs
Howard Hawkins' Memoirs: Part One: The Hawkins Family
Part One: Martin and Mary Hawkins arrived in Winimac, Indiana 1907. Martin Hawkins had beeen a farmer in Sprinfield, Illinois, but decided he would like to purchase a farm of his own. He boarded a train in Chicago and decided to get off in Winimac, Indiana. No one remembers why he stopped at Winimac, a small town named after the Native American Chief Winimac, who fought in the Battle of Tippecanoue, but there was good farm land there, Mr. Hawkins thought, better than the land in Illinois.
Mr. Hawkins went to see a real estate broker who had two farms for sale. He preferred the farm that went on to become the Hawkins farm. He met with the owner, got a lawyer, and a bill of sale. Then he went back to Springfield, and later, in the spring of 1907, Mr. Hawkins and his wife Mary moved with their family to Indiana. Agnes, John, Rose and Nan had been born in Illinois and moved with their parents to Star City by train and horse and buggy. The house had been built already; it is now about a hundred years old.
The Hawkins farm is located in Star City, formerly named Scarborough. It was a former railroad town, even smaller than Winimac or nearby Pulaski. When Howard Hawkins was growing up, Star City had a drug store (Doc Grooms' store), a barber shop, a grain elevator (run by the Phillips family, into which Howard's sister Rose would marry), a grocery store, and a doctor, the one who delivered Howard and after whom he may have been named. There were few automobiles then; mainly horses were used for transportation; so each town needed more stores. The towns had more business than today.
There was also a restaurant then, and a school where the playground is today. Pulaski was smaller than Star City at that time but had a grocery and farm equipment supply store (Gilsingers). There was a school, all 12 grades in one small school. Star City was part of the Indian Creek township. Martin Hawkins was on the school board. Howard's sister Nan taught in Pulaski, later taught French elsewhere. Esther, another sister, taught in Winimac. His oldest sister, Agnes, taught in Prairie school; a one room schoolhouse on the road to Winimac from the farm.
Left, Howard Hawkins as a child When he was 10 or 12, Howard used to bring water to the workers in the fields He would get a dollar a day. He sometimes did this for 3 or 4 other farms. Farming at that time was done with use of horses and plows. It would take 2 or 3 men, who could normally take care of the farm work except at harvest time when 5 or 6 would typically be needed. The farmers would help each other out.
The first automobile for the Hawkins family was bought in 1916, the year of Howard's birth. It was a Studebaker. Martin Hawkins bought it because it was made in South Bend, Indiana. It was a good automobile. It probably had a crank.
The Hawkins farm got its own electical generator early on. Later, in the late 1930s, the government program subsidized electicity for the whole area. The Hawkins' own generator had to be charged by gasoline; the resulting lights weren't very good. The Hawkins bought a large floor-standing radio, around the 1930s. It is still in the house and still works. Father used to listen to this radio to get the grain prices from Chicago.
Father (Martin Hawkins) had black angus cattle, pigs, and chickens, but no sheep.
There had been a number of dead sheep on the land when he moved in, and he had had to remove them. After that he never wanted to raise sheep again.
In those days the farmers grew corn and soybeans, as well as some oats and wheat. In winter the family would can apples. They would also store potatoes in the ground with straw and dirt over them. This was done with apples as well. Father took wheat over to the mill in Pulaski to have it ground. The family was mostly self sufficient though crops were mainly to feed animals. They would sell animals for more income, but would also eat their own corn and wheat.
Howard Hawkins' Memoirs: Part Two
Howard graduated from high school in 1932 and attended Indiana University business school (Aunt Esther encouraged Father to let him go; Father had wanted him to stay and help on the farm). Howard had played basketball in high school, at the forward position, but Father did not want him to play in college. His comment was "You're there to study, not to play basketball."
After graduating, Howard got an accounting job doing calculating payments for unemployment compensation. He had that job for the sumer then decided to go to law school. His parents agreed, and he went to Indiana University Law School, graduating in 1941 with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence.
Howard joined the FBI in June 1941; this was his service. He went to Washington, DC for training for 3 months. Then he was sent to New Haven when, as the newest agent, he was on duty on a Sunday afternoon when the Pearl Harbor attack broke. Howard was then sent to New York City and assigned to the "House on 92nd Street" case. He oversaw a spy radio station that had been a Nazi station before the FBI discovered it; the FBI made sure Nazis never found out that the station had been taken over by the Allies. Nazi agents were in the US and the FBI arrested them and made them into double agents.
The radio was shortwave and they sent broadcasts in order to acquire information that would help identify Nazi agents in the US. The radio messages were designed to mislead the Germans and also were used as a basis to identify other Nazi agents. The FBI staff operated the radio under Howard's orders and would listen to Germany.
The film, The House on 92nd Street, was made in 1945 at at time when the war was almost over but not entirely. Howard was still an undercover agent. So he declined to appear in the film as an extra though he was asked by the production staff (some of other agents from the New York office can been seen in the film). Director Henry Hathaway was pleasant, efficient, businesslike. Part of the film was actually filmed at the radio station at Wading River, north shore of Long Island, where the actual events surrounding the radio station took place.
Howard could have bought the house there for $5,000.
By that time he had met Helen Foley, who was from Leonia, New Jersey and had left college when the war broke out. She had gotten a secretarial job at the FBI and had met Howard there. They got married in October of 1946.
