THE ELMHURST PRESS - Wednesday, April 28, 1999
Posted here with permission of Press Publications.
Brotherly love
York twins
By
Marie Lazzara
For most people, telling identical twins apart is difficult. When asked if their York High School classmates could tell them apart or saw them as individuals, Bob and Bill Harrison gave very different answers. "As twins, most people, other than our close friends, really couldn't tell us apart," Bill said. We have the same mannerisms, the same voice, approximately the same height, and we looked alike. We made a point not to dress alike, which helped those to identify us. Contrary to many stories you hear about twins pulling stunts on people, that is really not what we did." Bob said: (People) probably treated us an individuals. Because were identical twins, there's a uniqueness there people would tend to relate to. We had our different lives. Though we were probably similar in personality, we were still considered as individuals." Bill, who is 15 minutes older than Bob, also leads in the recollection department as compared to his brother. Bill recalls many of his experiences at York. They liked doing the same things, went to the same school and worked the same kind of after-school jobs. They also learned to put their heads together to help make it through rough financial times while living in rural Lombard. Bob and Bill who are now 62 years old, said that York gave them the encouragement to seek a college education and to become successful in their own right.
Finding their way With a few exceptions, the brothers were placed in different classes so that it would be easier for them to learn. Bill saw his brother Bob as the leader of the two, a person who aggressively went after things such as jobs. Bill described himself as more of an athletic type. During his sophomore year, Bill was a member of the school's wrestling team. On the other hand, Bob saw Bill as outgoing. Bill elaborated more on the difficulty of being a twin in high school. "I think there are more disadvantages about growing up as a twin than there are advantages, Bill said. "Most people look at you not as individuals, but as almost one entity. "At one point we were. in a class together, and we have a habit of talking a lot and the teacher said, "If you or your brother says another word, you're both going to be kicked out of class." "A counselor would want to talk to both of us together rather than each having our separate time. At the time I didn't give it much thought because it happened all my life. We were very, very close all the way through college. We actually pooled our money together and worked out of a common pot. We were very poor and resources were extremely limited. "As we got older and went to college, we helped support the family since they had no money. In fact the summer that we left for college we helped buy a car for my father. We really didn't split up until after we got out of college and decided that it wasn't healthy to be too close together." One of the advantages of a York education was learning from the school's various teachers, such as band director LaVeme Reimer and English instructor Robert Leader. "They were knowledgeable," Bill said. "Some were more fun than others, but I felt that they were all good teachers. What really made a difference (for us) was the fact that we were coming from Lombard. "Lombard and Addison were considered the poor parts (of DuPage County). It (York) gave us the opportunity to associate with kids that were affluent and kids that were doing things that nobody in our neighborhood did, like driving nice cars and going to theaters. Bob said "I think we both enjoyed York very much because of the activities, and I think the people were friendly. I think it was a challenge that we wanted what other people had. One of the fellows that we ran around with lived in Elmhurst in a very nice home. It was an incentive to hopefully be in that position - to come up with a decent home when we grew up." Both brothers admit that they were not academically inclined, but they did take advantage of York's after-school activities. Bob and Bill played the flute in the school's concert band. Bill also played drums at athletic games.
"I enjoyed playing in the football and basketball games, marching and playing in the stands," Bill said. "The key there was to see how loud you could play and how much noise you could make. That was quite enjoyable. We had a lot of friends in the band, and it was a social activity as well. "One of the nice things about playing in the band is that it gave me an appreciation for music that's been with me for the rest of my life. As I got older, I started listening to not only band music, but orchestral music and opera and all types of classical music. York had a very good music program. Our band and choir were top of the line."
Bill remembered Reimer as "very demanding and sometimes a bit dictatorial but the fact was that he was pushing a good program."
"As twins, most people, other than our close friends, really couldn't tell us apart. We have the same mannerisms, the same voice, approximately the same height, and we looked alike."
Bill Harrison The brothers had time to enjoy swimming at the local pool, to hang out with friends and to catch John Wayne western movies at the York and Villard theaters. To make ends meet they worked at Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn, where they served as bartenders and caddies and shined shoes. Before entering high school they had a paper route and delivered the Lombard Spectator to residences. "In those days, you didn't have a lot of opportunities," Bill said. "There weren't a lot of jobs for kids. You didn't have 600 fast-food places that would hire you. We didn't have any clout to get jobs. A lot of our friends in Elmhurst were working for their dad's businesses. "After-school jobs were difficult [to find]," said Bill. "In Lombard, in those days, the town was 6,500 people, so it was really a rural community. College was a subject never discussed until Bob and Bill heard that other classmates were filing applications. They decided to see if they could qualify for a higher education. "Because of my family background, we just seemed to exist with no motivation," Bill said. "In our senior year in high school, everybody planning to go to college. Up that point at home, that subject never discussed. It was assumed we would go find a job somewhere. My brother said, 'Why don't we go to college?' I said, 'We don't any money and our grades but maybe we could find to take us.' " Bill said that he and Bob searched small liberal-arts colleges that were far away from their hometown. eventually decided on the University of Dubuque (Iowa) after learning that one of their friends planned to go. Before they could be accepted, they had to write autobiographies as part of their application process. They turned to Leader for help, and he edited their written works and rewrote some of the sentences. "When the school received (the biographies), they were amazed how well it was written," Bill said. One of the comments when we re being interviewed by the college was 'Your writing is very good; you certainly have the potential.' I think it went a long. way to getting us accepted."
Going their separate ways They both. decided to get bachelor's-degrees in business administration and minors in psychology. 'We really didn't have a lot of guidance on what to do,"' Bill said. "Contrary to today, where some of the best students go into the business schools, in those days better students when into premed, engineering or teaching. The easier classes were in the in the business school." During their stay at the university, Bill said, he and his brother were introduced to Christianity through the college's seminary program for Presbyterian ministers. The brothers began attending church on a regular basis. While this was a happy time for them, tragedy hit home when their mother died of cancer. Later, their father died. After graduating in 1958, the brothers took different career paths. Bill worked at Sears, Roebuck and Co.'s Maywood location. He was then drafted and became a clerk in the Army's operations division in Germany from 1959 to 1961. The opportunity gave him the chance to see other countries such as England and Austria. Bill returned to Lombard and Sears and spent 36 years 36 years working for the company's locations in Chicago, Oak Brook and Hoffman Estates. His positions included overseeing the cosmetic division and children's departments and sales promotion. He retired as a buyer in 1993. After three years of courting, he married his wife, Winnie, in 1965. Winnie, a registered nurse, also went to York. They had a daughter, Sheri in 1969 and a son, Jeff, in 1971. In 1976, he and his family moved to Naperville. Bob went to work for Montgomery Ward selling hardware in its LaGrange store. Not happy with his job, he had his name pushed up on the draft list. He took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and at Fort Harrison Indiana. Bob entered a special military school in Indiana that taught him how to wire IBM machines. In 1959, he was sent to South Korea as an accounting specialist. After 13 months, last assignment was at Army chemical center keeping records and filing reports. In 1961, he was discharged, returned to Lombard and working at the Franklin based A.M. Castle Co. In 1964 he married his wife, Phyllis, and had a daughter, Cherylynn, in 1967 and a son Richard, in 1969. After spending some time in Wheeling, Bob and his family moved to Arlington Heights He and his wife still reside there. Bob still works as an administrative manager for A.M. Castle. The brothers still keep in touch and have time to get a golf game now and then. They both plan to attend York's reunion and have gone to past reunions. Bob credits York for giving him "the foundation to allow me to go to college, even though we weren't good students." "I think that it isn't necessarily how smart you are but how hard you work." Bob said. Bill likes that fact that the reunion reminds him of the good times he had at York. "You start remembering people," Bill said. "You start recognizing people and names. It starts coming back. The mind starts working again, and it was lot of fun. "Anybody, for whatever reason, who plans not to go is making a mistake. They will have a lot more fun that they could possibly imagine. They will relive memories that they have forgotten."
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Bill Harrison (left) put energy into his wrestling and concert band activities at York High School. Currently he resides in Naperville with his wife, Winnie.