{"id":148,"date":"2018-03-15T20:12:56","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T20:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/?page_id=148"},"modified":"2018-03-15T20:13:57","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T20:13:57","slug":"harold-kerns","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/student-projects\/now-and-then-by-caroline-herter-and-colby-baldis\/harold-kerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Harold Kerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cKeep applying yourself…Don\u2019t take it for granted.\u00a0 Learn all you can learn…Don\u2019t ever underestimate us old-timers.” – Harold Kerns\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WestsideBorn on February 21, 1921, Mr. Harold Kerns was raised at 101 Francis Street in what used to be called the West Side of Steelton, PA.\u00a0 His father, Clarence L. Kerns, was a steelworker in the Bethlehem Steel Mill and enjoyed keeping documents of the town’s history.\u00a0 Estella (Deimler) Kerns, his mother, looked after her eleven children and took pride in being one of the best bread makers in town.\u00a0 When the house was just too crowded to hold them all, the family moved to 327 Conestoga Street, just a few blocks away in the West Side.<\/p>\n

Harold Kerns attended West Side Elementary and then went on to Steelton High School where he played football.\u00a0\"Westside Today, he still enjoys reminiscing with his old teammates and coaches about the joys and hardships of being an outstanding team.\u00a0 While some players went on to play football at a higher level after graduation, Harold feels that once someone becomes an adult, he or she \u201cneeds to stop doing childish things a work for a living.” Therefore, after high school graduation in 1939, Kerns gave up his athletic career and joined the working class.<\/p>\n

\"KernsThroughout Kerns\u2019 childhood, athletics played a significant part in his life.\u00a0 He and his friends would often play pick-up games, such as baseball, basketball, and football, out in the open lots in the neighborhood.\u00a0 Back then, the players only had a ball and a bat and would sacrifice their bodies for the joy of the game.\u00a0 After baseball games, Kerns and his friends often walked to the potato chip factory where the owner would give them each a free bag of fresh chips.\u00a0 When Kerns later found out that he had a cataract in one eye, he claimed that is was caused by all of the foul balls that hit him in the face.<\/p>\n

Having a gift of working with his hands, Kerns began learning about machines and mechanics in high school.\u00a0 He recalls an old shop \"Haroldteacher telling him one day, \u201cHarold, the difference between a mechanic and a guy who thinks that he is a mechanic is that extra ten percent.\u00a0 Don’t be satisfied with ninety percent.\u00a0 You do one hundred.\u201d Shortly after graduation, on October 3rd, 1939, Kerns began his life-long career at the steel mill as a skilled machinist.\u00a0 \u201cWorking with thousandth of inch tolerances, Mr. Kerns and his colleagues made raw steel and then fabricated and machined it into finely honed line shafts and gears for World War II battleships, structural elements of the Golden Gate Bridge, frog switches and rail for every major railroad in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Postcard\"During the period of draft for World War II, many of Kerns\u2019 friends and coworkers went to war.\u00a0 He would have been drafted as well, but they did not accept him due to the absence of his right eardrum.\u00a0 He still did everything that he could to support the war, including working on \u201cdefense work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HaroldAfter only a few years working in the steel mill, Kerns\u2019 married Sue Duke.\u00a0 The couple regularly attended The Church of God and never had any children.\u00a0 The two lived in Steelton while Kerns\u2019 worked in the mill until he finally retired on February 1st, 1983.\u00a0 Throughout his working career, however, he contributed to the community in many ways.\u00a0 He was a substitute teacher for a few days at the Central Dauphin VoTech School.\u00a0 He was involved with organizing Steelton\u2019s branch of the Steel Workers Union, which still exists, and he also helped the late John Yetter create the thorough archival book, Stop-Look-Listen: A History of Steelton, Pennsylvania<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kerns\u2019 own personal historic collection started when he and his wife \"Bookbought a postcard at an antique store.\u00a0 Since then, he has gathered an extensive collection including twelve thousand postcards, a large number of rare photographs from inside the steel mill, many rare bottles, city directories, and artifacts.\u00a0 Throughout his collecting, an older woman contacted him about an antique postcard that she had.\u00a0 The picture on the front was of the young Woodsmen of America in Steelton from the 1800\u2019s.\u00a0 After purchasing the card from the woman, Kerns realized that one of the boys in the picture was his father.\u00a0 This photo became the only picture that he owns of his father from childhood.<\/p>\n

Currently living in Enhaut, PA, a town that bordering Steelton, Kerns is known to the community as one of Steelton\u2019s great community historians.\u00a0 If someone is interested in learning more about a certain aspect of the town, Mr. Kerns is the person to talk to.\u00a0 He is always more than willing to share his stories of life in Steelton and his extensive collection of historical artifacts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Return to Reflections of the Past – Then<\/a><\/p>\n

Return to Now and Then by Caroline Herter and Colby Baldis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cKeep applying yourself…Don\u2019t take it for granted.\u00a0 Learn all you can learn…Don\u2019t ever underestimate us old-timers.” – Harold Kerns\u00a0\u00a0 Born on February 21, 1921, Mr. Harold Kerns was raised at 101 Francis Street in what used to be called the West Side of Steelton, PA.\u00a0 His father, Clarence L. Kerns, was a steelworker in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119,"parent":23,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-148","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148\/revisions\/158"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mosaics.dickinson.edu\/steelton2001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}