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- Paul still has quite vivid memories, while Dorothy was still a baby, of being sent up town on an errand and overhearing sufficient muffled conversation among some of the adults that, upon his return home he gave a rather garbled account of what he had feared to his mother. On this day, his father had driven out to the onion patch as usual in his model T touring car. He was returning home while it was still very early. He approached the railroad crossing from the south but failed to see the train coming from the east. He didn't get all the way across the tracks before he was hit. The train demolished the car and almost did the same to Richard. (Emma always thought he had many things weighing on his mind which may have made him fail to see the train).
- The train stopped, picked him up, and backed up the mile to the main crossing in Hudson which was just a block from the doctor’s office where Richard was taken. He was presumed dead. Paul remembers that Morg Pike [1st. cousin] was there and elected to wash some of the blood from his fathers face. In the process, Richard opened his eyes and the doctor quickly began to work on him and patch him up. (Dorothy remembers being told that a sheet had been pulled over father’s face... until a moan was heard from him).
Some years later he still complained of a hurt shoulder... and for fifteen to twenty years he was working pieces of glass from his ear and hand.
After a few years, Stella began teaching in Hudson where she remained until she retired in 1952. At one time or another she taught all her brothers and sister except Vivian.
Richard’s brother Lou and three of his sisters had moved to Los Angeles. So the summer of 1920, he and his family, along with Carl Hardy’s, drove their touring cars to California, camping along the way. It took about three weeks to drive out (the roads were dirt and in poor condition in many areas). The return was made in about a week by train... shipping the car back. The only member of the family not making this trip was Vivian who was still in the East. He had worked in a munitions factory in New Jersey during WW1.
Paul entered high school at the age of 11... still wearing short pants; the principal thought he was just visiting. This was the only time the Pfingstag brothers were connected with the same school at the same time; Viv, the oldest, was the basketball coach; Carl, the fourth, was a senior; (Herb was away at college), and Paul was a freshman.
The summer of 1923 Herb and Carl entered the U.S. Naval Academy. Paul made up his mind to follow his brothers into the Naval Academy. He had graduated at the age of 15, too young to get in. That summer he worked in his father’s onion business. After Christmas he went to Washington, D.C. and enrolled in Devitt Prep School. He applied to the Academy but received no word back, so he entered Purdue University that fall only to leave after his first term and re-enter Devitt Prep. Knowing the right people got him an appointment, and he entered the Academy in July 1928.
It seems that Dorothy was given much more opportunity for musical training than any others in the family. She began the study of piano in the third grade and violin in the fifth. By that time, there was the beginning of a fine school of music program. A county supervisor came to the school once a week and encouraged the students to take lessons. A school orchestra was started and players from orchestras in all the county schools would gather together on Saturdays in the gymnasium in Angola for rehearsals. Eventually, Tuesday evening rehearsals were held for a more select orchestral group.
Music contests in each Township found many participants with winners going to the County Contest... held in February with schools closing down several days for this big event. Eventually, in later years, the County winners often put on a program over the
- Ft. Wayne WOWO radio station. By the seventh grade, Dorothy had also begun playing the cornet seriously... though not in the orchestra. Whenever there was a band to play in she did... also playing solos, and in duets and trios throughout the rest of her schooling.
During her senior year at Pleasant Lake High School, she was asked by the music supervisor to conduct the rehearsals of the school orchestra n preparation for the county contest - which they won. This was excellent experience for, by that time, she had figured she probably would go into public school music. She had even studied the clarinet her senior year so that she had some knowledge of all the families of instruments: string, brass, and wind instruments (all but percussion). Largely because of all this experience, she never was required to study an instrument in college.
After graduation from the Academy, Herbert was married to Lesla Lukens, of Los Angeles, October 14, 1928. Carl married Margaret Ransburg of Pleasant Lake, July 1, 1929.
The summer of 1930, Stella, Lesla, and Dorothy took the train to Los Angeles... at some point a niece of Herbert Riedel (Richard’s youngest sister, Ida’s, husband), who lived in Kentucky, joined them for the trip. She, Elfrieda Riedel, planned to go to a junior college in Los Angeles... staying with another Uncle who lived alongside Uncle Herb. Lesla was going out to join up with Herb who had been transferred to the West Coast for duty.
The spring of 1932 there were three graduations in the family. Dorothy, from Pleasant Lake High School; Paul. from the Naval Academy; and Herbert, from post graduate work at MIT. Richard, Emma, and Dorothy drove to Annapolis to attend Paul's graduation and from there went on up to the Boston area to see Herb’s ceremony. (Stella had gone out to Los Angeles for the summer so was not on this trip).
In August of that summer, Herb was transferred to the West Coast for duty. It was a good opportunity for Dorothy to ride out with him to Los Angeles where she stayed with Richard’s sister Ida and family (Herbert Riedel and Virginia). The Pfingstags... Lou, Lena, and Agnes lived on one side of Uncle Herb and Aunt Ida, and Herbert’s brother Fred and two sisters lived on the other side. Their street later was obliterated to make room for one of the many freeways built throughout the city and surrounding areas. As was mentioned earlier, Elfrieda -- who had gone out with Stella, Lesla, and Dorothy the summer of 1930 -- was living with Fred Riedel and sisters and was attending a two year business college.
That fall of 1932, Richard and Emma drove out to Los Angeles. They had a wreck about half way out which delayed them until their car could be fixed up but, fortunately, neither was injured. Richard had hoped that things might work out so that he could live out there. However, the impact of the 1929 recession finally reached the small town of Hudson and the bank had to close. Richard was a stock holder in that bank and, along with other stock holders, had to cover the losses. Thus ending his dream of living in California.
Herbert and Carl came to Richard’s [Dad's] aid and financially assisted Dorothy so that she could stay and continue her education. She had entered the Los Angeles Junior College, the Fall of 1932 staying with Aunt Ida and Uncle Herb and going to and from classes via the streetcar. For two years she enjoyed the Women’s Athletic Association events very much, having majored in music with a minor in physical education, and played her cornet in the college orchestra. Her second year, Leroy Allen, organized an all-city band and Dorothy was asked to play in it - along with about three other girls. While they never played for any specific program, they all enjoyed the Saturday rehearsals and really were a fine group of musicians. Leroy Allen went over to the UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) faculty the same year that Dorothy transferred there for her last two years of college.
That summer, before entering the Junior College, Elfrieda showed Dorothy the finger positions for typing, Dorothy worked on this and was able to earn a little spending money during later college years, typing term papers for other students... as well as finding it an invaluable aid in doing her own work.
At UCLA, there was no band in which the women students could participate. However, Dorothy played cornet in the University orchestra all the time she was there. Also while at UCLA, she lived in Westwood in a dormitory, working for her board.
The Fall of 1933 was another major event in the family with Paul marrying Martha Groverman (a sister of a Naval Academy Classmate).
Shortly before graduation in 1936, Dorothy received word from a good friend and also voice supervisor of Steuben County when Dorothy was in high school... Wilma Dick. Wilma was leaving the county position and going to Elkhart so there was a vacancy coming up. Dorothy applied and received the position. As it happened, Dorothy Fee, who had been teaching instrumental music in the county, preferred vocal and this worked out fine for the two Dorothy’s according to prior plans, switched jobs so each were happy.
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