Lives is Woodstock, NY., 2007
Worked as a tool designer in California.
He remembers early days with Shirley and Bobbie Stark. Billy had a childhood crush on a girl named Marion Matassa. Bobbie was a ladies man and wrote a love letter for Billy to give to her. Later the letter was found by Billy’s family and they teased him to pieces about it.

Bill recall that as a child the family lived in extreme poverty. They had moved to Woodstock from the city, and were living in the top floor of a carriage shed. They had no electricity or running water. His mother you pump water and carry it upstairs for cooking and washing up. His father sold sand to make a living, hand shoveling it into a truck owned by his cousin Theron Short, who also owned the sand pile.

Bill’s grandparents came to live with them in the country, making it an even tougher life. Nana’s brothers had been in real estate in the city, and had arranged for her to get the income from second mortgages on property they owned in Harlem. When the markets crashed the mortgages became worthless. Her husband Charles had no job since his streetcar injury, and both became a burden for Bill’s parent to support.

Bill recalls that around 1935 or 1936, Bobbie Stark was visiting from the city and that Bobbie helped Bill pen a love letter to a girl that Bill had a crush on. Vera would sent Bobbie to the country so that she could go out and party with her friends. Bobbie wrote things like, “Your teeth are like pearls” and other corny lines to impress the girl. The letter was misplaced, and found by Bill’s father, Irwin, and Irwin’s cousin Theron. Bill said they made his life hell for weeks teasing him about the contents of the letter. “Bill, your teeth are like pearls.”