Erroll Raymond Birnie was born in July 1916 to Erroll Raymond Birnie, Sr. and Rozalia Delores Thompson Birnie in Jersey City, NJ. Erroll Senior was of Scottish descent and Rozalia, Irish and English. Erroll was the first of three children, his siblings were Marie Rozalia and Robert Thompson. In the early 1920's the Birnie family moved from Jersey City into a house just off of Clinton Avenue in the Clinton Hill section of Newark, NJ. The family worshipped at Blessed Sacrament Church on Van Ness Place in Newark and Erroll went to Madison Junior High School and eventually graduated from West Side High School, Newark in 1934.
Just out of high school Erroll started working for the DuPont Company and his next door neighbor introduced him to her best friend and the woman who would eventually become his wife, Adelaide Rose Nemick. Adelaide lived in the Clinton Hill section of Newark too, not far from Erroll, and she also attended Blessed Sacrament Church.
Prompted by the outbreak of war in the Pacific, in January of 1942, at age 26, Erroll joined the US Navy and was based out of the Naval Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn, NY. He served in the Atlantic as a Gunner's Mate first class aboard four Merchant Marine ships between January 1942 and October 1945. Those ships were: SS Henry Wells, SS Edward Sparrow, SS Yorkmar and SS Katrina Lukenbach. Erroll was the recipient of the World War ll Victory Medal.
During leave from the Navy, on the 12th of December 1943, Erroll married the love of his life Adelaide Rose Nemick. The ceremony was held at Blessed Sacrament Church where Adelaide's brother Stanley and Erroll's sister Marie were witnesses. After the war Erroll and Adelaide lived for a few years in Newark where he went to work for New Jersey Bell as a repair man and installer, gradually working his way up to dispatcher. They had their first two children, Carol Ann and Joan Eileen, in Newark and then moved to Bloomfield, NJ where a third child, Richard Erroll, was born.
Life in Bloomfield was idyllic, much like the Leave it to Beaver Show. Pop was a member in good standing of the NRA and he was good at everything he attempted to do. In the new house he finished the raw space of the second floor into a bathroom and two bedrooms and later on he finished the basement into a recreation room and utility room/workshop as so many people did in the 1950's/60's. Mom and Pop landscaped the property around the new house in Bloomfield, planting trees and shrubs, building a patio, adding walls and manicuring the lawn. He worked on our cars and kept them impeccably clean. Some of our favorite memories were piling into the 1959 Chevy station wagon (Aspen Green on top and Cream on the bottom) and taking road trips to places such as the Jersey shore, Niagara Falls, Washington D.C., Gettysburg and Hazelton, PA to visit family. Pop liked to leave on trips around midnight to get a head start on traffic and the parents expected us kids to sleep in the back of the station wagon. Things sure were different then.
Pop died of a massive heart attack in September 1970 at the age of 54, you see he didn't like visiting the doctor so the heart disease got the best of him. We miss him, think about him often and I believe he would be proud of what we all accomplished.
Just out of high school Erroll started working for the DuPont Company and his next door neighbor introduced him to her best friend and the woman who would eventually become his wife, Adelaide Rose Nemick. Adelaide lived in the Clinton Hill section of Newark too, not far from Erroll, and she also attended Blessed Sacrament Church.
Prompted by the outbreak of war in the Pacific, in January of 1942, at age 26, Erroll joined the US Navy and was based out of the Naval Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn, NY. He served in the Atlantic as a Gunner's Mate first class aboard four Merchant Marine ships between January 1942 and October 1945. Those ships were: SS Henry Wells, SS Edward Sparrow, SS Yorkmar and SS Katrina Lukenbach. Erroll was the recipient of the World War ll Victory Medal.
During leave from the Navy, on the 12th of December 1943, Erroll married the love of his life Adelaide Rose Nemick. The ceremony was held at Blessed Sacrament Church where Adelaide's brother Stanley and Erroll's sister Marie were witnesses. After the war Erroll and Adelaide lived for a few years in Newark where he went to work for New Jersey Bell as a repair man and installer, gradually working his way up to dispatcher. They had their first two children, Carol Ann and Joan Eileen, in Newark and then moved to Bloomfield, NJ where a third child, Richard Erroll, was born.
Life in Bloomfield was idyllic, much like the Leave it to Beaver Show. Pop was a member in good standing of the NRA and he was good at everything he attempted to do. In the new house he finished the raw space of the second floor into a bathroom and two bedrooms and later on he finished the basement into a recreation room and utility room/workshop as so many people did in the 1950's/60's. Mom and Pop landscaped the property around the new house in Bloomfield, planting trees and shrubs, building a patio, adding walls and manicuring the lawn. He worked on our cars and kept them impeccably clean. Some of our favorite memories were piling into the 1959 Chevy station wagon (Aspen Green on top and Cream on the bottom) and taking road trips to places such as the Jersey shore, Niagara Falls, Washington D.C., Gettysburg and Hazelton, PA to visit family. Pop liked to leave on trips around midnight to get a head start on traffic and the parents expected us kids to sleep in the back of the station wagon. Things sure were different then.
Pop died of a massive heart attack in September 1970 at the age of 54, you see he didn't like visiting the doctor so the heart disease got the best of him. We miss him, think about him often and I believe he would be proud of what we all accomplished.
Erroll Raymond Birnie was born in July 1916 to Erroll Raymond Birnie, Sr. and Rozalia Delores Thompson Birnie in Jersey City, NJ. Erroll Senior was of Scottish descent and Rozalia, Irish and English. Erroll was the first of three children, his siblings were Marie Rozalia and Robert Thompson. In the early 1920's the Birnie family moved from Jersey City into a house just off of Clinton Avenue in the Clinton Hill section of Newark, NJ. The family worshipped at Blessed Sacrament Church on Van Ness Place in Newark and Erroll went to Madison Junior High School and eventually graduated from West Side High School, Newark in 1934.
Just out of high school Erroll started working for the DuPont Company and his next door neighbor introduced him to her best friend and the woman who would eventually become his wife, Adelaide Rose Nemick. Adelaide lived in the Clinton Hill section of Newark too, not far from Erroll, and she also attended Blessed Sacrament Church.
Prompted by the outbreak of war in the Pacific, in January of 1942, at age 26, Erroll joined the US Navy and was based out of the Naval Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn, NY. He served in the Atlantic as a Gunner's Mate first class aboard four Merchant Marine ships between January 1942 and October 1945. Those ships were: SS Henry Wells, SS Edward Sparrow, SS Yorkmar and SS Katrina Lukenbach. Erroll was the recipient of the World War ll Victory Medal.
During leave from the Navy, on the 12th of December 1943, Erroll married the love of his life Adelaide Rose Nemick. The ceremony was held at Blessed Sacrament Church where Adelaide's brother Stanley and Erroll's sister Marie were witnesses. After the war Erroll and Adelaide lived for a few years in Newark where he went to work for New Jersey Bell as a repair man and installer, gradually working his way up to dispatcher. They had their first two children, Carol Ann and Joan Eileen, in Newark and then moved to Bloomfield, NJ where a third child, Richard Erroll, was born.
Life in Bloomfield was idyllic, much like the Leave it to Beaver Show. Pop was a member in good standing of the NRA and he was good at everything he attempted to do. In the new house he finished the raw space of the second floor into a bathroom and two bedrooms and later on he finished the basement into a recreation room and utility room/workshop as so many people did in the 1950's/60's. Mom and Pop landscaped the property around the new house in Bloomfield, planting trees and shrubs, building a patio, adding walls and manicuring the lawn. He worked on our cars and kept them impeccably clean. Some of our favorite memories were piling into the 1959 Chevy station wagon (Aspen Green on top and Cream on the bottom) and taking road trips to places such as the Jersey shore, Niagara Falls, Washington D.C., Gettysburg and Hazelton, PA to visit family. Pop liked to leave on trips around midnight to get a head start on traffic and the parents expected us kids to sleep in the back of the station wagon. Things sure were different then.
Pop died of a massive heart attack in September 1970 at the age of 54, you see he didn't like visiting the doctor so the heart disease got the best of him. We miss him, think about him often and I believe he would be proud of what we all accomplished.
Just out of high school Erroll started working for the DuPont Company and his next door neighbor introduced him to her best friend and the woman who would eventually become his wife, Adelaide Rose Nemick. Adelaide lived in the Clinton Hill section of Newark too, not far from Erroll, and she also attended Blessed Sacrament Church.
Prompted by the outbreak of war in the Pacific, in January of 1942, at age 26, Erroll joined the US Navy and was based out of the Naval Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn, NY. He served in the Atlantic as a Gunner's Mate first class aboard four Merchant Marine ships between January 1942 and October 1945. Those ships were: SS Henry Wells, SS Edward Sparrow, SS Yorkmar and SS Katrina Lukenbach. Erroll was the recipient of the World War ll Victory Medal.
During leave from the Navy, on the 12th of December 1943, Erroll married the love of his life Adelaide Rose Nemick. The ceremony was held at Blessed Sacrament Church where Adelaide's brother Stanley and Erroll's sister Marie were witnesses. After the war Erroll and Adelaide lived for a few years in Newark where he went to work for New Jersey Bell as a repair man and installer, gradually working his way up to dispatcher. They had their first two children, Carol Ann and Joan Eileen, in Newark and then moved to Bloomfield, NJ where a third child, Richard Erroll, was born.
Life in Bloomfield was idyllic, much like the Leave it to Beaver Show. Pop was a member in good standing of the NRA and he was good at everything he attempted to do. In the new house he finished the raw space of the second floor into a bathroom and two bedrooms and later on he finished the basement into a recreation room and utility room/workshop as so many people did in the 1950's/60's. Mom and Pop landscaped the property around the new house in Bloomfield, planting trees and shrubs, building a patio, adding walls and manicuring the lawn. He worked on our cars and kept them impeccably clean. Some of our favorite memories were piling into the 1959 Chevy station wagon (Aspen Green on top and Cream on the bottom) and taking road trips to places such as the Jersey shore, Niagara Falls, Washington D.C., Gettysburg and Hazelton, PA to visit family. Pop liked to leave on trips around midnight to get a head start on traffic and the parents expected us kids to sleep in the back of the station wagon. Things sure were different then.
Pop died of a massive heart attack in September 1970 at the age of 54, you see he didn't like visiting the doctor so the heart disease got the best of him. We miss him, think about him often and I believe he would be proud of what we all accomplished.
