By JOHN HANRATTY,
the Georgian
In the 1950s most young people in Stephenville fell into one of two groups: children of the American Air Force personnel (military or 'base brats'), or children of the townspeople.
However there was one other group that fell in between, who didn't really belong to either group. Their parents (usually fathers) were American civilians who worked for the military.
Joseph Alexander (Al) Woodruff, Jr., belonged to this third group.
"We lived in no man's land, in an area simply called 'Campsite'," says Mr. Woodruff.
It was up across from the current Stephenville Truck Centre on Minnesota Drive, not far from the site of the new hospital.
"It was a temporary setup, not a tent city but not much more - the buildings were just made of tarpaper and slats. But there were up to 2,000 people living there at one time. Eventually they dragged in some houses. It was not part of the base, but it was in the middle of the base."
Mr. Woodruff says he was neither a military brat nor a townie. When he was younger and one of the few kids at Campsite, that made for some lonely times. But by the time he became a teenager, he had turned the situation around and had begun to circulate with both groups, especially when he was 16 or 17.
"We had it made, we had the best of both worlds."
In Little League baseball, he had become great pals with Ron Jewer from the town. They went everywhere together.
"We had a ball. We covered the town (and base). We were back and forth from one side to the other three times a day....
"It was the innocent 50s, the best time in the world to grow up. We had baseball, beer (in the later days) and rock and roll."
The new rock and roll music was particularly heady stuff.
"It was just coming out, and it was a radical change. It's not like today, when you take different kinds of music for granted. It was exciting."
Part of the innocence was the complete lack of drugs. Mr. Woodruff says drugs just didn't exist in their world.
They spent a lot of their time in a club for teenagers, in a building behind the Harmon Theatre. It had a lot of facilities including a dance floor and juke box.
"It was all innocent fun. Things we thought were big or serious then would be nothing today."
When Mr. Woodruff first arrived in Stephenville, he didn't find it nearly as enjoyable. He was nine and half years old, and he arrived on Christmas Eve, 1951.
His father, born in North Carolina, had been working at Harmon Base for a year. Along with his mother (originally from Georgia) and his younger brother Charles (Buddy), Al made the long trip from the southern U.S. to rural Newfoundland.
Al had been born in Macon, Georgia (birthplace of Little Richard). At the time, the move must have seemed like travelling to another planet.
But Al says the worst time was at first. The more kids that came to Campsite, the more he liked it.
"It was a great place. We had a lot of fun. It was basically a huge construction camp, with all sorts of material and equipment lying around. I suppose it was kind of dangerous in a way, but we took advantage of it, the way kids would."
As he grew older and moved around the base and town, he also came to like the area even more.
His dad worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which specialized in water control and dams, bridges and highways. In Stephenville, they worked on the airfield and the huge runway, and also on the dock at Port Harmon.
Mr. Woodruff, Sr., became a concrete inspector and soils specialist. Eventually he rose to a position equivalent to colonel in the military
"Harmon was a good place to learn his 'trade'."
Al, Jr.'s magical childhood later hit a severe detour. He wasn't very interested in school, so his father decided to send him back stateside to a tough military 'prep school' near Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Woodruff says the tough discipline there helped him to get through high school, but it was like a prison. There were no phone calls or visits home during the year.
Mr. Woodruff says he did his own early version of TV's Rick Mercer today.
"At prep school, I'd tell them that I had a dog team back in Newfoundland for transportation, and that sort of thing, and they believed every word of it."
Despite the rigors of the school, he did get to return to Stephenville every summer and pick up where he left off, playing baseball and enjoying all the town and base had to offer.
However in 1962, his father decided to take a desk job in the Pentagon, and the family moved to a new subdivision in Arlington, Virginia.
"I was the saddest kid you ever saw when we left... and the happiest kid when we moved back to Stephenville a year later. I figured we'd never go back."
His father quickly missed the hands-on experience of working in the field on projects. He also found living off-base a much more expensive proposition than he realized. He was ready to move back in a few months, but waited until the end of the school year for his sons.
Mr. Woodruff and friend Ron Jewer played a lot of baseball, both junior and senior. Mr. Woodruff had an advantage in that he played a full season at prep school in the warm Georgian 'winters' before getting back to starting the season in Newfoundland's considerably cooler 'springs'.
"It was a really nice time. Baseball was a big thing here then. Port au Port and Stephenville were the big rivalry. We'd get close to 1,000 people at the games.
"And we travelled to Corner Brook. That was an overnight thing then: two hours each way on dirt roads, and lots of breakdowns. We'd stay at the Glynmill Inn....
"We felt this was the best place in the world to live. My father used to say: 'Don't tell them in the States how good it is here - the place will be overrun!"
Eventually, Mr. Woodruff graduated and entered university in Georgia. But he quickly transferred to Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's. Meanwhile construction at the Harmon Base was slowing down, and his father transferred to Goose Bay for a year. Then back to the States for good to work for NASA at the Kennedy Space Centre when the push was on to put a man on the moon.
Mr. Woodruff was on his way to join his family in the States when an encounter in Halifax with a friend of the family led him to stay and continue his studies there.
But in 1964 he took the route so many did from Newfoundland, heading for Toronto to look for work. He may never have made much money there, but he did meet Marion Lucas, and they got married the next year. Ironically, she was from Stephenville Crossing.
Mr. Woodruff wanted to return to Newfoundland, and a few years later they did. They settled in Stephenville Crossing and raised three children: Natalie, Krista and Vaughn.
Mr. Woodruff worked at different jobs, including selling accident insurance. He later joined Abitibi when it came to Stephenville, and he still works at the mill. He's in stores or supply management.
He's also still active in local baseball, and still enjoys the great rock and roll music of the 50s.
He's a grandfather now and is very proud of his children and how well they have done. All are living in the Winnipeg area.
"They're wonderful, all of them have degrees and good jobs.... But I still think they didn't have half the fun growing up that we did in the 50s!"
Harmon High School students roughed it in the early days in this building located to the right of the Stephenville Manor building, near the Harmon Theatre. Al Woodruff went to Grades 9 and 10 here. A few years after this 1958 photo, the school moved to its new quarters in what is now the LA Bown building. From left are students Kenny Watkins, Bobby Dexter, Charlotte Bryant, Sarge Gullickson and Roger Ingram. (photo taken from the Rocket yearbook of 1958)
Al Woodruff (left) and his brother Buddy in front of the rudimentary housing they lived in at 'Campsite'. It was a community of its own for civilian workers and families located on the Harmon Air Force Base. (photo courtesy of Al Woodruff)