Background on Fred and Louise’s Families

We only have three somewhat partial albums from Barb’s youth: one that Betsy put together for Barb’s 40th birthday, one that Barb made mostly in 1966 when she lived in Italy, and one from Barb’s school ski trips in Dusseldorf. Betsy has a much larger trove of photos of their youth and earlier that we’ve started to scan and incorporate.

In this post, I’ve consolidated scattered references to the Fisher-Bogdansky family history from a few different posts, particularly from Betsy’s albums and the second half of the final post about Helen Delameter Fisher’s album. Some photos and anecdotes may repeat from other posts but I wanted to get as complete a thread as I could here. Photos that have a year or date without a question mark mean they are accurately dated from notes on the photo; dates with ? mean that I’m guessing.

• Bogdansky Family Background
• Fisher Family Background
• Fred and Louise
• Barb’s Album from Betsy

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Bogdansky Family Background

Via Stewart Aitchison we got some initial information about Louise and her family.

Mary Elizabeth Snider (sometimes spelled Snyder, whom Barb later called Nanny) married Charles Julius Bogdansky (sometimes spelled Bogdanski or Bogdanske, later Barb’s Grandpa Charlie) on January 31, 1921.

Their first daughter, Leona Rachel Bogdansky was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania in 1921. Connellsville is in southwestern Pennsylvania, about 50 miles from Pittsburgh. Her father, Charles, is listed as a student on the birth certificate. Leona married Lawrence Foster Aitchison on May 21, 1942. They had a son, Stewart Wayne Aitchison, in 1947. Stewart married Margaret Ann Kramer (1948-) and had a daughter, Kate Lynne Kramer Aitchison in 1988.

Sarah Louise Bogdansky was born in Pennsylvania (also Connellsville?) on November 24, 1922.

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Louise and Leona grew up in Connellsville where their Dad (Grandpa Charlie) was raised and worked. Barb reports that Grandpa Charlie had a wooden leg, the result, perhaps, of a WWI wound. I have a vague recollection of Louise saying that he worked in a steel mill in or near Connellsville, but I could be wrong.

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I presume that Louise’s Mom (Nanny) kept house. Grandpa Charlie died in August 1959 when Betsy and Barb were very young but Nanny was around for Barb’s youth in Italy. Barb and Betsy loved having her around; she taught them to love crispy spaghetti, among other things. She had passed away by the time I showed up.

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At some point, probably in the 1930s, most likely during the Depression and because he had a hard time finding work in Connellsville, Grandpa Charlie, Nanny, Louise, and Leona moved to Chicago. Barb thinks that, one way or another, Charlie got involved with servicing aircraft and met a young Larry Aitchison (who would eventually marry Leona).

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Grandpa Charlie, Nanny, Louise, and Leona would drive from Chicago back to Connellsville each summer to spend time “on the farm.” I’m not sure exactly whose farm it was. Evidently their car had a rumble seat and I guess Grandpa Charlie rode back there because of his wooden leg. Barb remembers stories that, more than once, relatives gave Leona and Louise kittens to take back to Chicago. The kittens would ride in the back with Grandpa Charlie but somehow they never made it to Chicago. I have no way of knowing how apocryphal that story is or what it says about Grandpa Charlie. Just reporting.

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When she was about 19, Louise had a date with Larry Aitchison but they didn’t hit it off, according to Betsy and Barb. Louise’s sister, Leona, however fell for Larry and they got married in 1942. Leona and Larry established a home in Downer’s Grove, a Chicago suburb. Larry eventually had a long career as an aircraft mechanic with American Airlines based out of Chicago until he and Leona retired to Arizona. Through Larry’s airline affiliation, he and Leona (and Stewart, while he was a child) could fly free for life anywhere American went, but Larry resented that he still had to pay tax on the tickets.

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Louise went into the WAVES during World War II, sometime between 1942 and 1944. I believe she got her first medical training there and served in the Naval Hospital Corps. For at least a while she was at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Newport, Rhode Island.

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I don’t know much about her WAVES career but I know Louise took pride in her time there. She could make a bed with tight hospital corners and bounce nickels off the sheets. The running joke in the family was that Louise outranked Fred because he only made it to corporal in the Army while she was a Petty Officer, Second Class in the WAVES, equivalent to a sergeant.

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Louise’s gravestone in Arlington National Cemetery (Columbarium Court 3, Section Y, Column 15, Niche 1) actually identifies her as Sarah Sosh Fisher, a Navy PHM2 or Pharmacist’s Mate, Second Class. So there’s a little bit of news. It helps explain why she was so good at administering shots in her later life at Foreign Service clinics.

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One way or another, presumably after her WAVES service, Louise found her way to Detroit where I think she studied to be a nurse at Wayne State University. While there, she worked in the surgical unit of Grace Memorial Hospital (I found that detail in a note somewhere but now I’m not sure where).

Louise married Rudolph Maxwell (Max) Sosh in 1944 or 1945, (possibly because she became pregnant, I’m guessing simply because of the date of Douglas’ birth near the end of WWII and the general lack of detail, wedding photos or anything). I’m not sure how they met. Max was an actor in Detroit (I’m pretty sure, because he knew Fred Fisher there) and eventually did a lot of voice-over work for commercials. They had a son, Charles Douglas Sosh, in 1945.

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Max was evidently an inveterate womanizer and had an affair with another woman when Douglas was still very young. Louise knew the woman and when Max decided to divorce Louise and marry the new woman, Louise agreed to let Douglas go with them, thinking that he would have a better life. Douglas lived mostly with his Dad, who eventually moved to Arizona and married several more times. He was reputedly a poor father for Douglas; Louise and Fred tried to adopt Douglas at some point but Max wouldn’t allow it. Years later, every once in a while, Louise would recognize Max’s voice on a national TV ad but it wasn’t a happy sentiment.

Very tragically, Douglas died in a motorcycle accident as a teenager in 1966 or 1967. I don’t know for sure where Louise was at that point or how it affected her. I don’t yet have any stories from Betsy or Barb about it.

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Through Max, Louise came to know Fred Fisher, another radio voiceover announcer in Detroit. After Louise’s divorce from Max, she and Fred became an item, I think while he was still at Wayne State University and harboring dreams of joining the Foreign Service. See more about Louise and Fred’s life together below.

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Here’s a family mystery that I’m starting to unspool: this memorial card for August Bogdanske was tucked in among the loose photos in Betsy’s collection. None of us knew who August Bogdanske was. An uncle or cousin of Louise’s?

With some online digging, I found this obituary from the Connellsville Daily Courier, March 11, 1970. It turns out August was Louise’s uncle, one of five sons born to Frederick (1856-1931) and Jessie Premus Bogdanski (who was born in Germany on 31 Dec 1865 to Frederick Premus and Mary Sandusky. Jessie Premus Bogdanski married Frederick Bogdanski and had 5 children. She passed away on 20 Aug 1945 in Connellsville, Fayette, Pennsylvania, USA). Charles Julius Bogdansky (Louise’s father) was their oldest son, born July 18, 1893, and died August 25, 1959 in Evergreen Park, Cook County, Illinois.

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Regarding spelling of Bogdanske, turns out there were at least three spellings (-ske, -ski, -sky) within the immediate family. No wonder things have been confusing.

August’s obituary led me to his brother Fred’s obituary from October 19. 1977 (another uncle of Louise’s). I also found Frederick and Jessie Bogdanske’s headstone which is in the Hill Grove Cemetery in Connellsville.

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Fisher Family Background

Fred’s parents, Helen Marie Delameter (born February 13, 1895 in xxx, died 1989 in McLean, Virginia) and Robert Richards Fisher (born xxx in Detroit, died xxx in Detroit) were married July 23, 1924 in Detroit.

See more about them in Helen Delameter’s albums, particularly the second half of this post.

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Robert and Helen lived in Detroit most of their lives. I’m not sure what Robert’s career entailed. Something in the auto industry? Similarly, I think Helen was a homemaker but I could be wrong.

They had two sons, Frederic Allen Fisher (Fred) born May 1, 1925 and Thomas (Tom) born a year or two later, both in Detroit.

Fred and Tom grew up in Detroit. The Christmas photo below is noted on the back as November 25, 1949 in Chicago (did they live in Chicago at some point?). But that date is much too late for it to have been Fred and Tom. I suspect both these pictures are of Fred and Tom, but I think they’re from closer to 1930.

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Fred told few stories of his childhood in Detroit. The main story I recall revolved around the Soap Box Derby. This non-powered downhill car race was created in 1933 with a national championship in Akron, Ohio. Fred became captivated with the race as a teenager and built a regional-champion racer in 1939 when he was 14. The next year, he was ineligible to compete again but helped Tom build a racer and coached his brother to become World Champion in 1940. It was a very big deal for both of them. Fred later said it may have been the highlight of Tom’s life but Tom let it gnaw at him that it was really Fred’s victory.

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Helen and Robert were both near the end of their lives by the time I began to infiltrate the Fisher family. I met Fred’s father, whom Barb called Poppy, just once when they visited Oakton in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s. He was a gentle old man whom Barb and Fred doted on. I remember he enjoyed woodworking and hand-carved this intricate crossbow that we still have. He passed away in Detroit not long after that visit.

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After the death of Fred’s father, Tom helped take care of Helen at her home in Detroit. Sometime in 1986 or so, Helen moved to the Lewinsville retirement residence in Falls Church. We would visit her from time to time (but not very often, honestly), and she would occasionally make the trip over to the Fishers’ house in Oakton.

Helen was a chilly woman who did not endear herself greatly to Barb, or Louise, for that matter. The happiest we ever saw Helen was one day at Lewinsville when we brought our cat Hugo over for a visit. Helen perked up and was very friendly to us and Hugo. But that was a one-time event. I don’t think we had a second opportunity. She declined quickly and passed away in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

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Barb’s uncle, Tom, Fred’s younger brother from Detroit, visited for a short time in early 1987, and the photos include Fred’s mother, Helen. We very rarely saw Tom, in fact I think this was the only time.

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At some point, probably in 1986, Fred and Tom went to visit the National Model Aviation Museum in Muncie, Indiana. It may have been the only brotherly activity Fred and Tom enjoyed together in decades. It’s also the best representation of the kind of models Fred used to build since we don’t seem to have any pictures of his actual creations.

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Fred considered Tom something of a ne’er-do-well. Tom had bounced from job to job over his lifetime, never married, and struggled with addictions, I think. After Helen moved to Lewinsville, Tom stayed in the family home in Detroit and rattled around for another few years. Sadly, he decided one day to end it all with a gun to the head. Fred had to make the awful trip to Detroit to deal with the aftermath, clean up and sell the home. As best I recall, he did these tasks on his own and never talked much about them.

Here’s the one scrapbook item Helen kept from Tom. Go figure.

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We have two random photos that came from Helen Fisher’s album. I’m not sure who any of these folks are. Please enlighten me if you can.

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Fred graduated high school in 1943 and was drafted into the Army in the midst of World War II. In 1944, a few months after D-Day, he was sent to France as a replacement to join the 80th Infantry, part of Patton’s Third Army, around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. Within a few weeks, probably November 1944, he was wounded in the neck with shrapnel was sent to hospitals in France and possibly England.

Fred was patched up enough to return to battle but soon developed trenchfoot which led to amputating his big toe. This made him useless to the army and he was sent to more hospitals for recuperation, eventually to the United States. For the rest of his life, he had limited sensation in either foot. In all, he was in hospitals far longer than he had been in battle. A school report written by one of Fran’s granddaughters provides some more detail about his Army career.

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Fred enrolled in Wayne State University on the GI Bill, where he flirted briefly with the Socialist Party of America and volunteered on a presidential campaign for Norman Thomas (in 1948?). I’m not sure where he worked in the years before joining the State Department in 1951, or if he joined straight after completing college.

While he was at school (I think), Fred was also featured as a radio actor and always had a great speaking voice. His roles were on local Detroit productions of shows like “The Lone Ranger” where he would play a little boy saying lines like “Who was that masked man?”

Fred & Louise

Through the radio gig, Fred became acquainted with a fellow actor, Maxwell Sosh and his wife Louise, probably around 1948 or 1949. Louise had already had her son, Douglas, with Max in 1945. Max, however, already had his eyes (and more than that) on another woman, also a friend of Louise’s. Before long, Max left and divorced Louise to marry the other woman. Louise agreed that Max and the new wife could make a better home for Douglas and he lived with Max from then on, through several more divorces and wives.

After Louise’s divorce from Max, she and Fred became an item, I think while he was still at Wayne State University and harboring dreams of joining the Foreign Service. Louise was studying nursing at Wayne State and worked in the surgical unit of Grace Memorial Hospital.

When Fred actually got into the Foreign Service in 1951, he proposed to Louise (possibly because he didn’t want to go abroad alone, but we’ll say because they were in love). Louise had not quite graduated nor was fully certified as a nurse, but she decided to marry Fred and move abroad, putting her career plans on hold.

Louise would go on to work as a nurse practitioner or nurse’s assistant at various overseas postings, including in Hong Kong while I was there. In 1975, Louise was proud to participate in Operation Babylift flights to rescue children before the fall of Vietnam. After Fred and Louise retired to Oakton, Louise took more classes and worked in several medical outpatient clinics. I’m not sure if she ever graduated or became a fully accredited nurse, but she could give shots and medical advice with the best of them.

Here is a Christmas card from 1950 but I can’t tell if it’s to or from Louise or if they had already decided to get married.

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Louise and Fred married on March 3, 1951. I haven’t seen a wedding announcement or anything else about the event. As far as I know, they boarded a ship to move to Asia very shortly thereafter. I believe they were headed to Singapore but there’s at least a hint that they started for a time in Taipei. If Fred spent any time in Washington, D.C. getting any orientation or training, I have no record of it.

It’s worth remembering that China fell to the Communists in October, 1949 and the United States was embroiled in the Korean War from 1950-1953. Before 1950, I don’t think Fred had shown any particular interest or training in China or the Chinese language. After 1950, however, China became an important foe of the West and ally to the Soviets. Furthermore, there was wide concern that other countries in Asia would fall to very real and active Communist insurgencies. The United States sought to rapidly groom a new generation of experts on the country and the region.

Fred and Louise were pretty immediately stationed overseas, first in Singapore for a couple of years and then Penang, Malaya for another year or more during the Malayan Emergency. We have precious little information about their years in Singapore or Penang between 1951-1956; I’m not even sure how long they spent in either one.

One teaser we have is this letter Louise wrote from Penang in 1955. The letter hints that Fred and Louise previously spent time around Chinese New Year in Taipei, Formosa (Taiwan) but I have no idea when that would have been. The letter also mentions that Fred had been studying Chinese and hoped to get accepted at a university program in the States. That was not to be.

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This is possibly a picture from Penang. The actual photo is undated but the box on the picture says “USIS Singapoor” and the caption on the back in Louise’s hand says, “I hope all the dishes are out of that box. The amah is the clean looking one.”

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In December of 1956 (well, the photos are dated then but it doesn’t look like December in Chicago), Louise and Fred visited Chicago to see Louise’s family, including Douglas.

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In 1956 (or maybe 1957), Fred was selected for Chinese language training and started immersion study in Taichung, Taiwan, at that time a very isolated mountain town. They joined a small colony of American would-be China watchers all studying together — young men and their wives. It was a spartan environment, as described by Fred and Louise, and by David Dean in his book, Unofficial Diplomacy (see Google preview starting on page 48) and also Mary Dean in her memoir. Fred and Louise stayed in Taichung until 1958, forming tight bonds and lifelong friendships with other families including the Deans, O’Neills, Irelands, Babcocks and more.

There are many stories of the young families studying hard but also putting on plays and games to entertain themselves. Some of the crew headed into traditional State Department diplomatic careers, others were destined for more clandestine service. Several of the families brought or had children in Taichung. In 1957, Fred and Louise adopted Betsy Lee Fisher (born May 18, 1957), one of the first girls from Taiwan adopted by an American family.

From there, you can continue the story with Fred and Louise or pick up the story with Barb…