Thomas Edward Leonard (1916-1980)

Thomas Edward Leonard (1933)

I never knew my Grandpa Tommy, but he had quite a story...

Tommy grew up at 8 Briggs Street, Portland, the only child of Thomas Matthew Leonard & Agnes Peterson.  At a very young age, he became interested in short wave radio, while experimenting on ancient batteries. The face picture above is from an article done in the Portland Press Herald detailing his radio accomplishments. He had built his own half kilowatt station at the young age of 17. He had made contact with a ship off the coast of Iceland, and stations in Spain, Ecuador, Denmark, England, and Italy, among others. He had regular contact with a station in Holland, every day, in fact, at 3:00 a.m. I'm sure the young man got little sleep during his obsession, and probably missed some school days at Portland High.

Both of Tommy's parents died while he was very young.  His mother Agnes died of meningitis in the winter of 1934, when Tommy was only 17, and just before he graduated high school.  His father Tom died in 1943, of emphysema, while Tommy was serving in the Pacific during WWII.  It appears that he had an appendectomy scar on his body as well, just when he was enlisting in 1934.

TOMMY LEONARD'S YEARBOOK PHOTO
(1936)

While at Portland High School, he met Lorena Bell Fuller, and when Lorena revealed in May of 1936 that she was two months pregnant, they planned to immediately marry. Since they were too young to marry in Portland at the time, he at age 19, she at 18, they went to Portsmouth and married. Tommy fibbed on this record, however, claiming he was 21!

In 1937, after a nasty argument with Lorena, Tommy moved briefly to 63 Jefferson Street in Biddeford, in the old building named for (and managed by) former Biddeford Mayor Edward Henry Drapeau, and one of his former residences.  This building had been seized in the late 20's by the City after the Mayor had been convicted of graft (siphoning money from the City Treasury).

DRAPEAU BUILDING
63 JEFFERSON STREET, BIDDEFORD MAINE

Here is where Tommy started up his first home-based radio repair company called "Radio Rex Service," which was likely named after the then popular kid's toy involving a radio controlled dog which could be summoned from his doghouse by voice command:

In 1938, he moved back to Portland, living on 21 Spruce Street, and later 94 State Street, in Portland. 

Tommy and Lorena had three children:  my father Thomas in December of 1936, and then two girls, Rena Agnes (nicknamed "Honey") in 1938, and Charlotte Louise in 1939.

They were not married three years, when Lorena ("Nana") filed divorce proceedings. In fact, there is an unflattering article on this found in the local paper:



The divorce was finalized in March of 1939, while Nana was pregnant with Charlotte.  During this time, Tommy was working at Cressey and Allen Company, an appliance and electronics dealership, in Portland.

In 2012, I had the privilege of interviewing Frank Ingerowski, who was a childhood friend to my grandpa Tommy, who had this to say:

"I remember Tom's father wasn't working at the time. He was chief cook house living there, and Tom didn't get along with him.  They were always bickering and fighting and....Tom's father, I know he had worked with Johnley's. They put posters up on wallboard, you know. and this is back in the 1920s and 30s. Yeah, even though they had a truck, or they had horse-drawn. They used to have these these posters and they glue them before left the barn or where they worked, so they could dry a bit down a street or wherever, and stopped at some place and slapped the thing up ahead and had quite a knack of doing it."

"Tommy's grandfather, Old Matt, He was a nice guy. Didn't say much. In fact, I don't think I ever spoke to him. He used to sit in the back of the house, he always had a garden, and he sat there in the sun, mind his own business. Yeah. Wow. I remember that just like yesterday, and the old grandpa always had a nice garden in the back. Had a green thumb. And young Tom, the rascal, Fourth of July reminds me. Tom will take us some firecrackers and light 'em up and throw 'em at the old man. Well, make him jump up and mumble something. And Tom's father himself wouldn't say nothing. Wouldn't criticize him at all. You think he'd say, "Wait a minute, you know...that's his relatives!"

"Tommy's mother Agnes, was this little small woman, blonde, thin, very not heavy, She was kind of quiet, and I know her husband was always bugging her. He was always out in her kitchen there in back.  He never worked. It seemed. He's always bothering her or bickering. She's very nice, quiet woman. Yeah. and she didn't drink at all. A nice woman, and very unfortunately she passed.  Then Tommy got belligerent. So his his mood changed when his mother died.  Then when his mother died, he stayed with me about a month."

"Things didn't work out between Tommy & Rena.  It went from bad to worse. One afternoon, I go to work [police officer], and the wagon come in, and the guy driving the wagon says, "Ah, I just pinched a friend of yours, pinched, you know, police talk . I said, "Who?" "Tommy Leonard. He had a good word for you" because he tried to talk his way out like he knew me and all that, which he did, and that's the way things were. I said, "What happened?" "He beat up his wife. You know, beat up his wife." They broke up, and I remember he went to work in Biddeford, for some radio repair. Tom was good. He could do most anything, he was damn good radio operator, one of the best.  If you ask him to do plumbing, he would do that. You know, very good. Yeah, smart, smart boy.  Tom, got hold of a gun one time. Come home, come in show me his shirt.  In there was wrapped up an old beat-up revolver. Those are bad boys. You know, he's very proud of it. What are you going to do with it? I just told him. I was a cop, then, see.  That's the thing. Oh, he's goa beautiful protection, big shot, an old beat-up gun. I think.  Well, he had some bullets there, and was going practice. I remember. Yeah.  It was a 32 or something, pretty old gun.  and things went from bad to worse.  See, we were in the Naval Reserve there back in 1934. We both got in. We knew the code. We both had ham licenses, and we're right to the Navy, so they talked us into it. You know, you come in."

"Later on, I met Tommy in Florida, and I was there for a while. Went back north. My sister called me and told me that she saw an obituary how he passed away down there.  He was in bad shape then. Yeah, he only had one lung.  He smoked like crazy."

In the 1940 Census, Tommy was living with his father at 8 Briggs Street.  The below census page was rather disorganized, in that it makes him appear to be living with a William & Emma Quinn, but luckily the handwriting on the side gives reference to the father's house as listed in a prior page of the census in this district.  Tommy was calling himself divorced, and was working as a radioman.

Tommy left for active duty shortly thereafter, and had promised to pay child support to his ex-wife.  But Nana's mother Lorena (my "Gram") deeply disapproved of Tommy...and the story was that any attempt that Tommy tried to make with Nana was blocked by Gram. Either way, my Dad said that the whole family converted to Protestantism, even though all three kids were christened at St. Dominic's Church in Portland...and all because there was so much anger toward Grampa Tom for leaving them.

Tommy joined the Navy, just in time for WWII.  He never disclosed his prior marriage to the military, either.

He was stationed at on the USS St. Louis (CL-49) when the Attack on Pearl Harbor occurred.

USS ST. LOUIS (1941)

TOM LEONARD

(in Naval uniform)

Tommy's expert radio skills came in handy while in the service, and especially on that fateful day.  I've created a separate blog page which abstracts his vast military records.  It's likely that Tommy was inspired by Atwater Kent, the inventor of the single coil radio.

In 1942, He had a Reno wedding with Barbara Ione Connell from Westbrook Maine (whom he also knew in high school, and was perhaps always preferring to be with when Nana announced her pregnancy), and  he moved back to Portland Maine and lived with Barbara's family.   

November Telegram from Tom (in San Francisco) to Barbara (in Westbrook), asking her to meet him in San Francisco, just a week before they were married in Las Vegas.

TRANSCRIPTION:  Nov 1, 1942  To Barbara I. Connell, 646 Main Street, Cumberland Mills, Maine.  "Short Leave Starting Thursday.  Will Give Us Enough Time To Marry And Get Settled.  Cannot Mention How Long I'll Be Here But Will Be Together Will You Come to San Francisco Immediately (Stop) Draw Money And Pack Light Suitcase Leave Portland By Monday Proceed To The Golden Hotel.."

Wedding Announcement
29 Nov 1942
Portland Press Herald

Once in San Francisco, they settled in at 1736 Fell Street, where they lived from November 1942 to late summer 1944.  The kind current owners of this property allowed me to view and take pictures of my grandfather's San Francisco apartment while they were renovating it in 2012:

1736 FELL STREET
TOP FLOOR

PERHAPS THE ONLY THING HERE
WHICH SURVIVED THE 40s WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FLOORING?

When Tommy's father (Thomas Mathew Leonard) died in 1943, Tommy's uncle, Matthew John Leonard, Jr., demanded that Tommy use some of the money in bonds that was bequeathed to him to buy his parents a nice headstone at Calvary Cemetery.  It took some time, but this was done.  However, it's a shame that nobody saw to it that the rest of the Leonard family (Tommy's grandparents, his aunt Sallie, her son Leonard, and his great aunt Annie) were to be included on the headstone, although they are also buried there.  Whether Tommy knew these family members were also buried there or not, I'm not sure.

Around 1944, after many battles during WWII, Tommy was admitted to the Naval Hospital in San Pedro for PTSD (then called 'War Neurosis').  At some point after being discharged from the hospital, he and Barbara moved to Port Hueneme in Oxnard, CA (around 1947).  It was there that they had their first of two children.

On the 1950 Census in Oxnard, Tommy was listed as working for as a radio tech for the Navy, while Barbara was a clerk at the telephone company.  They lived right on Silver Strand Beach at Port Hueneme.

By 1956, they had moved back to Maine, where they had their second child, Sally, at Mercy Hospital Portland.  While in Maine, Tommy worked overseas in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia for Aramco Oil for about a year, and eventually the family moved to Accokeek, Maryland in 1960.

In 1964, Tommy, Barbara and the two girls paid a visit to Portland Maine, to try and see his three children from his prior marriage.  He managed to visit with Honey & Charlotte (but my father Tom, Jr. wanted nothing to do with him since he had deserted them as children).  Unfortunately, this contact wasn't continued thereafter, although there was hope for it.  I'm very happy that many decades later, I've established contact with some of this family, and we're beginning the process of getting to know each other. 

The family eventually moved to North Fort Myers, Florida in 1971. At that point, Tommy worked for the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime as a Radio Operator. He also served on the board of the American Radio Relay League, Dept. of Disaster Preparedness, and was a member of the Ft. Myers Radio Club.

 
He died at home of emphysema in 1980, at age 63. He and Barbara's ashes are interred at Coral Ridge Gardens, Cape Coral, FL.

 

GRAVE OF THOMAS & BARBARA LEONARD
CAPE CORAL, FLORIDA

Below is a pedigree chart of Thomas.  He was 50% Danish and 50% Irish.