Camera Familia #1
A serial memoir about growing up overseas, 1950s Philippines and forward
My natural father, Signalman Benjamin Franklin Dyer, United States Navy, the South Pacific, circa 1944.
He died in July 1950, heart stopped by a stray current traveling between an electric stove and a washing machine, in our kitchen on Mountain View Circle in Flintstone Georgia, far from the battlefield. I was 5 months old. My brother Mike was 9.
I have a USN semaphore flag, my paternal grandfather’s shotgun, a war trophy Japanese rifle, an engineering handbook printed in 1934 — but I never knew Frank Dyer.
He was, by all accounts, a prince of a man. My mother did not share the story of his passing until I was 10. My brother never spoke of it until long after we were both grown men.
And there was no opportunity to hear about it elsewhere. Mom remarried shortly before my 6th birthday. Days later, we moved overseas, away from everyone who might have been able to tell me about my people and myself.
Manila, 1956, was something of a clean-slate event. If you have a minute, I'll tell you how it worked out.
Johndyerwrites.com #expatlife #philippines #history #1950s