It all began with his mother when Melvin "Pete" Edwards was a young boy. But the ability to cook has served him well during his Army years, and even today, he's still the one who does most of the cooking in the household!
"We didn't have a lot it was the Depression," says Pete of his childhood years. "My mother taught us a lot of things, and that's where I learned to cook."
Born and raised in Jersey Shore, Pete, as he's always been known, graduated from Jersey Shore High School in 1947. During his school years, he worked part-time, nights and during the summers, at the Woolrich Woolen Mill, and that led to a full-time job after high school.
"A job as a butcher came open, so that's really where I started full-time, at the Woolrich grocery and garment store," says Pete.
That same year, Pete married Florence Cline. The two had met while working at the woolen mill. The newlyweds bought some property in Woolrich and Pete began building a home there in 1950.
"It was mostly woods at the time. There were only four other houses up the street," remembers Pete of their land at the far end of Park Avenue.
"I had gotten the basement dug, with the walls up and sub-floor down in January of 1952 when I got my draft notice. I went to New Cumberland for my examination and asked them how long it would be before I was called in. They told me six months or longer. Well, I got my draft notice a couple weeks later on Feb. 1... the same day lumber was being unloaded at our house. I was able to get the framework up by the time I left that Feb. 27."
Pete was sent initially to New Cumberland, then to Fort Meade, Md., before being shipped back to Pennsylvania to Fort Indiantown Gap for basic training.
"The first four weeks, I wasn't able to come home, but after that I could come home every weekend. I'd get off Saturday at noon and have to be back by midnight on Sunday, so I was fortunate enough that I could come home on weekends," says Pete.
In July, Pete was shipped by train to California to Camp Stoneman, where troops were being processed. On July 27, he received orders to go the wharf and prepare to board a troop transport ship, the USS Meigs.
"I went onto the ship as part of an advance party," says Pete. "I was an infantry rifleman and was put on KP (Army slang for 'kitchen police'), which I thought would be a rough duty.
"But a couple of days later when the main group of men came on board, I figured I was already used to riding the waves under the Golden Gate Bridge, so I didn't get seasick!"
The USS Meigs set sail July 29, 1952, for Yokohama, Japan. Pete says he clearly remembers their arrival on Aug. 29 because it was his wedding anniversary.
"After that, they sent us north up onto Hokkaido Island. I was put on KP again as part of the First Cavalry Division. The first cook asked me if I'd like to come and work in the kitchen. I figured it was better than going out and doing all of the marching, so I went to work in the kitchen there.
"There was an Italian and a Japanese fellow who were also in the kitchen. I worked with them. That went on until Oct. 5 - I remember because that was my birthday!"
In early October, Pete's unit boarded ships bound for the coast of Korea. He says their objective was to stage a mock invasion.
"The Chinese were pushing American troops south, so the U.S. sent the Airborne over top to draw the Chinese troops away from the front line," remembers Pete. "We never went ashore. After two days of shelling, we travelled south and landed off the southern coast of Korea."
From there, the troops went by train to Taegu, South Korea, and Pete was reassigned to the 7th Division, 31st Regiment.
"We were given more clothes, a rifle and some ammunition and sent out to the rifle range to test fire the weapons. When we came back, they sent us north to the front lines. This was around mid-October. I was sent up to Company F. There were 32 survivors in what had been a Company of 120 men, so I was among the replacements sent in for them."
At one point, Pete was pulled out of his unit and put on guard duty, guarding a hillside.
"We went out through the trenches, right off of Pork Chop Hill (an area of intense fighting during the Conflict). The guys said they'd be back for me the next morning. Next morning came and nobody came, so I was there for the next night.
"After two nights up there, I heard a commotion early in the morning. I challenged them. Here, it was our troops. I said, 'I thought you were going to be here yesterday. Did you bring anything to eat?'
"They said, 'We didn't know you were still alive we thought you were killed.' The mortar rounds had blown up the bunkers behind me, but didn't hit me."
Back at their outpost, Pete remembers everything being calm for a couple of days, and he was assigned to KP duty again. He was promoted to first cook when a mess officer overheard him giving instructions to the person who was supposed to be doing that job!
"We had a fellow who had just been promoted to be first cook in the mess hall," says Pete. "He took cold water and put macaroni in it and put it on the stove. I stopped him more or less growled at him saying you had to let the water boil before you put in the macaroni. The mess officer overheard this and asked if I'd take over the cooking. My job as a butcher in civilian life really helped me out!"
Pete says the life of an Army cook was much more than peeling potatoes.
"We'd go to work at noon and cook the meals for supper and the next day's breakfast. After the noon meal was served, we were there until the next day, unless they had patrols out and needed guard duty in the bunkers on the hill, then we pulled guard duty.
"We would rest for three or four hours in the afternoon and at dusk, we'd go up to the main line and fill in for the fellows who were out on patrol," he continued. "Then we went back and could rest until it was time for our shift to go on for cooking again."
In early December, Pete's unit was taken off the front line and put into reserve for a period of rest. They were there through Christmas.
"We had our Christmas meal there turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and filling, and sweet potatoes," he says. "We broke camp Christmas night and had to walk out of our position about five miles because they couldn't bring trucks in due to the artillery," says Pete. "Then we got on a train and rode five or six hours. There was no heat on the train; the temperature was down below zero."
"Then we moved over onto Baldy" says Pete, referring to "Old Baldy," officially designated Hill 266, another area that saw vicious fighting. "I was still doing cooking there, but that was a different hill of beans."
"The fellows on line couldn't show themselves, so they were all fed at night," he said. "The cooks would cook a dinner meal, then a supper meal for the troops in the rear, and after dark, we would take their supper meal up on the line, which required one of the cooks- me- to go with them, with our Korean choggies, who carried all of the food."
Choggies were Korean laborers who carried heavy loads for American troops.
"We had to serve the men," he continued, "Then go back down and cook a breakfast. We'd send that back up on the line, then come back and cook for the men in the rear. We had about 160 men we were cooking for; some could come in and eat regular meals, but the ones up on line couldn't come out of their foxholes."
Pete says that rigorous routine went on for several months. He did have five days of R&R (rest and relaxation) in Japan in late April and early May of 1953. After that, he was back on the front lines until early July.
"At that point, I said to our first sergeant, 'I've got my 36 points (a system the Army used for discharging soldiers). I want to go home.' They offered me another stripe if I'd stay, but I refused so they sent me back to the rear (to a replacement center) to wait on a ship."
"We had a lot of replacements come through because the Chinese had been on a big push," adds Pete. "They were asking for volunteers to help in the kitchen and an incentive was that you got some beer to drink! There were 1,500 men who went through the replacement centers there. One morning, I cracked about four cases of eggs and each man got whatever he wanted... two, three, four eggs. They really served a lot of food in the reserves for the fellas going up front."
Pete's trip back to the U.S. began on July 29, 1953 and was again aboard the USS Meigs.
"We returned to California and came into San Francisco harbor," he remembers. "We were the first ship back after the ceasefire. We traveled from the harbor to Camp Stoneman on buses and people drove along side and yelled at us, congratulating us on our safe return. I called my wife from camp on Aug. 8th and said 'I'm on my way home from California I should be home tomorrow.'"
The trip home wasn't all that simple. The first leg was a flight from California to Wyoming, where the plane landed in a snow storm. The next leg was a flight to Chicago.
"The plane went to take off and there was a flat tire," says Pete. "They got that fixed, went to take off again and had a fire in the engine. They got that taken care of and we flew in the same plane into Maryland, with only about a three-hour delay!"
Pete's unit was transported to Fort Meade, where he was able to reunite briefly with Florence.
"My wife had come down and found out where we were. We were together for a short time that evening, then she had to go home to go back to work. After I was processed, I was able to come home for a two-week leave."
Pete finished his time in the Army at Fort Meade, where he worked in the mess hall. He served as mess sergeant there through Nov. 24, 1953, when he was discharged.
"I came home the day before Thanksgiving, and went back to work at Woolrich the day after Thanksgiving," says Pete, who found out that getting back to work right away worked in his favor.
"About two weeks later, two fellows came into the store and asked for me," he recalls. "They asked if we could speak in private, so we went into the back. They asked where I had been the previous Wednesday and I replied, 'I was here working. Why do you want to know?' They said the Fort Meade bank had been robbed by a person fitting my description, so they were checking everyone out. They actually checked the payroll records to verify I had been at work!"
Pete eventually become manager of the Woolrich grocery and garment store in 1960. In 1978, as the business continued to grow, someone was hired to handle the garment business and Pete took over management of the grocery side of the business.
The stores were split in 1980 when the new outlet store was opened. Pete stayed on with the grocery store, but in 1990 was forced to retire after suffering a heart attack. The grocery has since been closed.
In addition to his career at Woolrich, Pete's active military duty was followed with service in the Army Reserves. He says the Reserve office at the time was in Lock Haven, above the old Martin Theater on Main Street (the third floor of the current Penny Lane building).
"Amos Weber was the commanding officer," he said. "Paul Eyer, a local insurance agent, was the executive officer, and Chuck Stein was a lieutenant.
"I was in the Reserves for the next nine years, part of the 805 Engineering Battalion," he continued. "My enlistment was up in May of 1963, the day they moved the Reserves from Flemington to Williamsport."
Pete and Florence went on to have two children, sons Richard, who lives in Milton, and Jeffrey in South Avis. They also have two grandchildren and two great-grandsons.
Through the years, Pete enjoyed hunting and fishing, but a heart attack 20 years ago forced him to give up those activities. He's been a long-time member of the Lock Haven Kiwanis Club, and used his cooking talents to serve the Club and the community; he's made the meat sauce for the Club's popular spaghetti dinners.
"They used to make meatballs, but I convinced them to go to a meat sauce years ago," laughs Pete.
For his service in Korea, Pete was awarded the combat infantry badge, the Korean service medal with three bronze stars for the three major battles in which he participated (the battles of Old Baldy, Pork Chop Hill and Hill 598), a good conduct medal, the United Nations service medal, and the national defense service medal.
Pete's memories of the Conflict remain vivid. He is among the many soldiers who suffered frostbite from the sub-zero temperatures that were commonplace during the Korean winters.
"There were times it was real cold," says Pete. "Korea is known as the land of the morning calm. At times, it was 10 to 30 below zero. The bunkers were a hole in the ground, with logs for a roof held in place with sandbags and a canvas door with holes you would shoot out of. The heat that you had wasn't much; you could get a bit of charcoal or you'd pour gas in a can of dirt and light it. When that burned down, you'd stir it up again and burn the fumes off it."
"The Korean War was a police action," he adds with a note of bitterness. "I would say, 75 to 85 percent of the time when wars are mentioned, they never mention the Korean War because it was a police action. But I had a good friend who lived near Jersey Shore. We went through basics and he was with me in Japan and then Korea, although we were in different companies. He had his leg blown off. He should have never been drafted he was married and had one or two children. The rest of us who went had no children."
"I came to learn that my houseboy was a North Korean spy," says Pete. "We had Koreans to do the dishes and he also washed our clothes. He was around for about two months and then he disappeared. Our intelligence people came looking for him and told us he was a North Korean spy."
"We had tents that we cooked in," remembers Pete. "The fellows had metal mess kits. We always had big garbage cans with a heater we'd light with gasoline. That would boil the water and each fellow in the mess would have to clean their own gear wash their own trays coming through the line."
"One of the best things that happened to us there is that we had a Mexican fellow who came in who was a baker. We had fresh bread or rolls, sweet rolls, anything you wanted, he could bake. He made the most perfect round rolls you'd ever want to see. Between the baker, and the Chinese and Italian cooks, they showed us a lot of the ins and outs of things."
"The Army came out with a menu and you followed it pretty much to what they said because, if you had 200 men, they gave you enough to feed 200," says Pete with a laugh. "Bacon and eggs, scrambled or sunny-side-up eggs for breakfast it was like going to a restaurant and getting a prepared meal!"
"I hope no one thinks I'm special," says Pete of his military service. "I just fell into cooking in the Army, but I'll tell you, being a cook there, you knew there were hours you had to be there and you were kept busy. I felt fortunate I felt as though I had a good job.
"The fellows on the line were sitting around waiting for things to happen, whereas, the cooks knew what was going to happen and it kept their minds occupied."
