Person:Donald Van Aken (5)

Biography

by Martha Jane Van Aken Bishop, his daughter

Donald Arthur Van Aken was born November 28, 1921, in Milan, Michigan, the son of Arthur Edward and Helen Newman Van Aken. The family moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan when he was about a year old. He resided there and graduated from Ypsilanti High School in June 1939. Following his graduation, he enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at Michigan State University and graduated from there with a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering -Design in March 1943. While a student at MSU, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy V-7 program; and following his college graduation, he reported to the U. S. Naval Reserve Midshipman School at the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, for further engineering training. He was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve at Annapolis in August 1943. While at MSU, he met Martha Jane Browne, and they were married in September , 1943 in Detroit, Michigan.

Active duty in the U. S. Naval Reserve included Diesel Engineering School at Pennsylvania State University; minesweeper duty at Boston, Massachusetts, and Bar Harbor, Maine; amphibious training and crew formation for LSMs at Little Creek, Virginia; and commissioning the LSM-2O3 at Philadelphia in March 1944. This ship served as a training ship at Little Creek, Virginia, until October 13, 1994, when the LSM-2O3 was assigned to the Ninth Fleet Amphibious Forces in the South Pacific. These forces participated in numerous landings in the Philippines and North Borneo. He served as the engineering officer aboard the LSM-203 and assumed command as a lieutenant of the LSM from V-J Day until he was rotated to inactive duty in January 1946.

He began working for the Kellogg Company at Battle Creek, Michigan, in their engineering and design facility in March 1946. In 1949, he was transferred to Springs, Union of South Africa. to assist in construction of a new Kellogg factory there and was plant manager at Kellogg's South African factory until 1952 when he and his family returned to Battle Creek. There he was assigned to Corporate Headquarter's Engineering Department and worked on numerous special engineering projects including the new Cat that time) Special K cereal. He remained working in special engineering and design work until he was transferred to Kellogg's San Leandro, California, manufacturing facility as their engineering manager in 1964. While at San Leandro, he was very active in the San Francisco Bay Area Plant Engineersl Society, serving as its president from 1972- 1975. He was awarded the honor of being named the San Francisco Bay Area Plant Engineer of the year in 1976. He retired in 1981, after 35 years service with the Kellogg Company.

Mr. and Mrs. Van Aken moved to Maryland in 1988. Besides his wife Martha, he is survived by three daughters, Martha Jane Bishop of Denver, Colorado; Mary Anne Sandwell of Fairfield, California; and Marilyn Louise Lawrence of Castro Valley, California; and five grandchildren, Deborah Lynne Schwartz of Swampscott, Massachusetts; Carrie Rosanne Schwartz of Denver, Colorado; Kathleen Anne and Stephen Edward Sandwell of Fairfield, California; and Kara Colleen Lawrence of Castro Valley, California. A memorial service will be held at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Hagerstown, Maryland, on Monday, July 9, 1990 at 8:00 P.M. Following full military honors, interment will be at the oak Grove Cemetery in Coldwater, Michigan on Wednesday, July 11, 1990, at 1:00 P.M. Arrangements are being handled by Davis Funeral Home in Smithburg, Maryland, and Dutcher Funeral Home in Coldwater, Michigan.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the National Cancer Research Foundation of the Hospice of Washington County, Inc.

Autobiography

January 23, 1986

Found and submitted by Mary Anne Van Aken Sandwell, August 16, 2004

My first memories were of riding a wooden kiddy car in the dining room of the house in which I lived the early years of my life on Grove Street (No. 119) in Ypsilanti. My recollection was that my mother was concerned about me getting thru the doorway to the cellar stairs. Other recollections include the next door neighbor’s sand and gravel business and the horses and wagons and barns at the back of their property, my brother’s Model T roadster and attempts to show me how to make it go in the driveway, and the grape arbor and really great sand pile underneath-especially when a new load of sand was dumped that was wet enough to make especially good “castles”. Of course there was the vegetable garden every spring along with the home grown fruit in the summer and fall, and on special holidays the live chicken which had to be “prepared” for dinner (I won’t go into the details that I witnessed).

Other vivid recollections of those years include the fashioning of a wooden airplane and attachment of an old sewing machine motor to the nose by my brother Herbert. I believe Herbert was attending high school at the time and taking shop courses. He made a wood-turning lathe and used it in fashioning the fuselage for the plane. There were only a few times I recollect that he powered up the motor and I recall that on one of those occasions, the model succeeded in getting away and crashed into the wall or a piece of furniture and damaged the wooden propeller! Another recollection was the Sunday morning that my father took my brother and me out to the local airfield – unknown to my mother and sisters – and hired one of the local pilots to take us up for a ride in his biplane. I can’t remember exactly how we manage to fit in – I suppose my brother was in the cockpit with the pilot and my father and I were in the forward cockpit. Fortunately, the outing all ended up successfully and we landed and returned home with great exciting stories to tell to our concerned family.

I can’t remember the details, but while attending kindergarten, first, and part of second grade at the nearby Woodruff grade school, somehow or other I got involved in a pushing affair at the water fountain across the main street (Michigan Avenue) from the school during an outdoor exercise and play period. Anyway the result was that a fellow classmate, Dean Allward fell into the shallow pool of the fountain and I got labeled as somewhat of a trouble-maker although I don’t remember any kind of punishment being meted out.

My parents had decided to move to the other end of town sometime that year – must have been in 1928 – so we did –to 124 College Place and a completely foreign environment for yours truly! The major problem I had was that the other kids in the neighborhood were already organized into two “gangs”– opposing factions. I found myself being pressured by both sides and threatened not to associate with the group who lived immediately behind our house – this on my way home for lunch on the first day at a different elementary school connected to the main city junior and high school! Well eventually it all worked out alright, even though we did have some “pitched battles” around our clubhouse built with whatever we could scrounge up around the neighborhood in the form of boards and cardboard, etc. This “clubhouse” was built under the porch adjoining our kitchen door which was quite high above the ground – perhaps seven or eight feet up as the ground level dropped quite fast between the front half of the house and the alleyway which ran along the back of the property. One of the major projects when we moved into the house, was the construction of a large addition along the right hand side which included a long narrow garage below with a “sunroom” with full bath and closet above. Above the front end of the sunroom was a flat area that was supposed to permit access from the window of the back upstairs bedroom for purposes of sunbathing – that's my guess. Along with all this, my dad decided that we should be blessed with all the advantages of hot water radiators – not hot air registers, etc.! Well in those days, no one apparently had the dream or any success with trying to circulate hot water around a house and metering it out to several large steam – type cast iron radiators both upstairs and down. His installation with what seemed like gigantic insulated hot water supply and return headers around the basement did work –after a fashion –although the system would be considered a monstrosity compared with those used today. I recall that we were never too warm in the coldest winter days when the winds would leak icy air around the doors and windows of that house. It was built of concrete blocks that had the exterior surfaces molded to resemble stone – but of course they never did look like stone – really drab gray and dark especially when wet.

I suppose there are hundreds of things I could recall while we lived and grew up in that home. My brother and I shared the back part of the “sunroom” while he attended the University of Michigan and I continued in elementary school. He and my second oldest sister, Gretta, graduated the same year – he from the University, she from Ypsilanti High School – which was in 1931. My oldest sister, Alice, graduated from Ypsilanti State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) in 1933. Gretta graduated from the same school in 1935 and started teaching in one of the local elementary schools the following fall. My youngest sister, Myrtle, graduated from high school that same June and enrolled in Home Economics at Michigan State College in East Lansing that fall. By this time, Alice had married and was living in East Lansing. I was now in high school and doing the usual things that boys seem to want to do at that age. (Note: Dad was on the varsity HS Basketball team, was Vice President of his senior class, a two year member of National Honor Society and Photography Club, Treasurer of his his junior year, and stage committee chairman for his Senior Play.) By the way, I forgot to mention that my brother was married in the summer of 1932 and due to the shortage of jobs (the country was now in the depths of the Depression), he had decided to take some graduate courses at the University of Michigan, so he and his wife Katherine were living with us in the house on College Place – they occupied the front upstairs bedroom. To be continued....

I grew up and was educated in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Following graduation from Ypsilanti High School in 1939, I attended and graduated from Michigan State College in East Lansing, Michigan in April of 1943 with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. I had enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve prior to graduation and was called to active duty in May of 1943. My active service began as an Apprentice Seaman at the Naval Reserve Midshipman Training School, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. After completing the 4 month course of indoctrination and instruction for prospective Engineering Officers in August, I was commissioned an Ensign, USNR. My first assignment, after commissioning, was at the U.S, Naval Diesel Engineering School at Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pennsylvania, This study “tour” was completed in January of 1944 and my next assignment was to the Minesweeper YMS-231 based at the East Boston Section Yard, Boston, MA. Late in January 1944 this vessel was transferred to Bar Harbor, Maine for duty along the northern coastal area of Maine. I soon received orders to report to the Amphibious Training Base at Little Creek, Virginia where crew were formed for manning a new type of lading craft-Landing Ship Medium (LSM’s). Following some organizational training, the crew was sent to the Dravo Shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware to await the completion of the USS LSM-203. The ship was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1944 and after a brief “shakedown” cruise in Chesapeake Bay, was placed in service as a training ship for other LSM crews at Little Creek Amphibious Training Base. In October of 1944, the ship went to the Norfolk, Virginia Navy Yard for minor alterations and was equipped for overseas duty. It departed Norfolk on Friday, October 13, 1944 with one other LSM for duty in the south Pacific. Memorable experiences included sailing around Cape Hatteras in a “horrible storm” (at times the ship rolled 45 degrees), attempts to determine location in the Caribbean by throwing the lead (soundings), passage thru the Panama Canal, refueling at Bora Bora in the French Society Islands, and exposure to Japanese air raids at Sansapore in Dutch New Guinea. Major actions included the American landings at Lingayen Gulf, Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor reoccupation under enemy fire at Nasugbuy and landings at Legaspi, Luzon, PI. Later the landing of Australian troops at Brunei Bay, North Borneo. In 1945 I was promoted to Lt. j.g. and by this time had qualified as a Deck Officer of the watch as well as continuing my duties as Engineering and Ships Service Officer (PX).

After the Japanese surrender, the ship was sent to Guam at which time I became captain of the LSM-203 for a short time until I acquired the necessary “points” to be returned to the United States for release to inactive duty. I began civilian employment with Kellogg Company as a draftsman 4 March 1946. I was soon assigned to lead the design work for a small “unit manufacturing plant” to be built and operated in foreign countries.

At 3 or 4, Grove St.

High School graduation