Wolskis
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This was on the front page of the Price County (WI) Review today.
Faith and service: Art and Hallie Fox to share a century of life with students
PHILLIPS — When Col. Art Fox, U.S. Air Force retired, delivers the keynote address at the Veterans Day program at Phillips High School, 9:30 a.m., on Nov. 11, his example for living a good life may stand out as much for his stories as a combat pilot in World War II and his service into the jet age in Panama, Korea and Japan through 1966.
Fox, who turned 99 years old on Oct. 19, said he will invite the kids to go back with him to the 1930s when he was in school. At that time he worked for five cents an hour and thought he was rich.
“It was poverty,” Art said of the Great Depression.
After talking about his Phillips childhood and his service during and after the war, Fox said he will shift the focus to the rapid change and the opportunities that it creates for people who understand how to take advantage. The technology of communications changed by leaps and bounds from the time he entered the service in 1942 and when he retired as a full colonel in 1966. The same is true today and the opportunities are just as exciting, he said.
“The opportunity to excel,” Fox said. “There are changes coming and when these kids get to be 60, 70, 80 years old, who knows what changes they will see? But don’t hesitate to step in and take advantage of what is coming.”
Fox was born in 1923 and raised on a small dairy farm in rural Phillips through the Great Depression and a major drought in the 1930s that he said is less remembered but was just as tragic. His wife Hallie was born in New Orleans and lived in Chicago until moving to Phillps as a young girl.
They went to different rural schools that would hold big events together in Phillips, according to Art. He and his mother were watching Hallie’s school put on a song and dance performance when she apparently made such an impression that he told his mom he would marry her someday. He was 10 and she was 9.
Art spent a year in the Phillips Normal School and graduated in 1940. He considered teaching positions for $17 a month when he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was accepted but there were no aviator openings — until Pearl Harbor — when he said everything started happening like a whirlwind.
Art asked Hallie to marry him before heading off to Texas for flight school. They were 18 and have been together at the hip for 80 years since.
He became a fighter pilot and started his service in the Panama Canal Zone and the Galapagos Islands, where the mission was to protect shipping from submarine warfare.
“They were very concerned about the Panama Canal back at the start of World War Two,” Art said.
Art flew 50 missions in 1943 to take out anything outside of the canal that might be a threat to shipping. He flew the P-40 Warhawk and then the P-39 Cobra.
“That was our sole purpose to protect the Panama Canal,” he said.
After returning to California to serve as a flight instructor and four months with his new bride, Art was assigned to the 14th Fighter Group and flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, a twin engine, twin frame fighter plane and finished the war escorting bombers in Africa, Italy and Southern Europe.
“So that’s where I finished the war,” he said.
After V-E Day his unit was to fly over the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia to fight Japan but the war ended before the deployment. Instead, Art was stationed again in Panama and became part of the first overseas fighter jet squadron that was combat certified.
Art was a member of a precision flight team that performed for President Dwight D. Eisenhower on a Panama visit. Eisenhower was so impressed that he met the pilots after to tell them how much he appreciated the show, and invited them to lunch at the officer’s club.
Art recalls that the lunch was fried chicken and that the young pilots were awkward in trying to show etiquette for the president with silverware. He said Eisenhower picked up a piece of chicken and said, “This is how we eat chicken in Kansas,” which immediately put the men at ease.
Hallie also enjoyed the Panama Canal Zone. One of her children were born there as well.
“I enjoyed it,” Hallie said. “It was a busy place.”
Art then went on to serve as a communications officer in Korea and at one point volunteered to teach English language lessons to a group of boys. One of the boys later visited him in Phillips in the early 1970s when he was the president of Daewoo Motors.
Art would lead command communication centers in Japan that were networked to provide headquarters in Tokyo with war theaters in the Republic of Korea and later in the Republic of Vietnam.
“I was just so privileged to be a part of it,” Art said of serving in the Golden Age of the Air Force. “It was a wonderful privilege that was mine to be part of it while it expanded to bigger and better airplanes.”
The family was together in 1962 when Art was the commander of a NATO base in Ontario. Tragedy struck the family when three of their four children were aboard a school bus that struck a dump truck. Two of the children died and a boy was seriously injured.
“They were 12 and 11,” he said. “They were the two middle children.”
The couple buried their surviving son this past year. Their surviving daughter Tammy Brandt lives nearby in the Phillips area.
The couple attribute their faith to their optimism and ability to overcome life’s challenges and tragedies. Art taught Bible school at their Baptist church for decades.
After the service the couple returned to live in Phillips. But they were very active and traveled all over the world as tourists and as part of a traveling dance group that performed everything from polkas and square dancing to folk and ballroom in around 47 different countries.
“We danced with a small group on the Great Wall of China,” Art said of their trip in the mid 1980s before the major changes took place to modernize China. “We danced in Tiananmen Square. The people were all smiling and clapping. They loved us.”
The Lord has blessed us so mightily, he added.
The couple believes that the organic garden they have used for their vegetables since 1966 is a key to their longevity. They don’t like to have food that is exposed to chemicals.
“Back in the old days, everything was actually really organic,” Hallie said, noting their parents lived well into their 90s.
Art and Hallie Fox have been interviewed extensively regarding his service in World War II including for the Library of Congress and the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Faith and service: Art and Hallie Fox to share a century of life with students
PHILLIPS — When Col. Art Fox, U.S. Air Force retired, delivers the keynote address at the Veterans Day program at Phillips High School, 9:30 a.m., on Nov. 11, his example for living a good life may stand out as much for his stories as a combat pilot in World War II and his service into the jet age in Panama, Korea and Japan through 1966.
Fox, who turned 99 years old on Oct. 19, said he will invite the kids to go back with him to the 1930s when he was in school. At that time he worked for five cents an hour and thought he was rich.
“It was poverty,” Art said of the Great Depression.
After talking about his Phillips childhood and his service during and after the war, Fox said he will shift the focus to the rapid change and the opportunities that it creates for people who understand how to take advantage. The technology of communications changed by leaps and bounds from the time he entered the service in 1942 and when he retired as a full colonel in 1966. The same is true today and the opportunities are just as exciting, he said.
“The opportunity to excel,” Fox said. “There are changes coming and when these kids get to be 60, 70, 80 years old, who knows what changes they will see? But don’t hesitate to step in and take advantage of what is coming.”
Fox was born in 1923 and raised on a small dairy farm in rural Phillips through the Great Depression and a major drought in the 1930s that he said is less remembered but was just as tragic. His wife Hallie was born in New Orleans and lived in Chicago until moving to Phillps as a young girl.
They went to different rural schools that would hold big events together in Phillips, according to Art. He and his mother were watching Hallie’s school put on a song and dance performance when she apparently made such an impression that he told his mom he would marry her someday. He was 10 and she was 9.
Art spent a year in the Phillips Normal School and graduated in 1940. He considered teaching positions for $17 a month when he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was accepted but there were no aviator openings — until Pearl Harbor — when he said everything started happening like a whirlwind.
Art asked Hallie to marry him before heading off to Texas for flight school. They were 18 and have been together at the hip for 80 years since.
He became a fighter pilot and started his service in the Panama Canal Zone and the Galapagos Islands, where the mission was to protect shipping from submarine warfare.
“They were very concerned about the Panama Canal back at the start of World War Two,” Art said.
Art flew 50 missions in 1943 to take out anything outside of the canal that might be a threat to shipping. He flew the P-40 Warhawk and then the P-39 Cobra.
“That was our sole purpose to protect the Panama Canal,” he said.
After returning to California to serve as a flight instructor and four months with his new bride, Art was assigned to the 14th Fighter Group and flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, a twin engine, twin frame fighter plane and finished the war escorting bombers in Africa, Italy and Southern Europe.
“So that’s where I finished the war,” he said.
After V-E Day his unit was to fly over the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia to fight Japan but the war ended before the deployment. Instead, Art was stationed again in Panama and became part of the first overseas fighter jet squadron that was combat certified.
Art was a member of a precision flight team that performed for President Dwight D. Eisenhower on a Panama visit. Eisenhower was so impressed that he met the pilots after to tell them how much he appreciated the show, and invited them to lunch at the officer’s club.
Art recalls that the lunch was fried chicken and that the young pilots were awkward in trying to show etiquette for the president with silverware. He said Eisenhower picked up a piece of chicken and said, “This is how we eat chicken in Kansas,” which immediately put the men at ease.
Hallie also enjoyed the Panama Canal Zone. One of her children were born there as well.
“I enjoyed it,” Hallie said. “It was a busy place.”
Art then went on to serve as a communications officer in Korea and at one point volunteered to teach English language lessons to a group of boys. One of the boys later visited him in Phillips in the early 1970s when he was the president of Daewoo Motors.
Art would lead command communication centers in Japan that were networked to provide headquarters in Tokyo with war theaters in the Republic of Korea and later in the Republic of Vietnam.
“I was just so privileged to be a part of it,” Art said of serving in the Golden Age of the Air Force. “It was a wonderful privilege that was mine to be part of it while it expanded to bigger and better airplanes.”
The family was together in 1962 when Art was the commander of a NATO base in Ontario. Tragedy struck the family when three of their four children were aboard a school bus that struck a dump truck. Two of the children died and a boy was seriously injured.
“They were 12 and 11,” he said. “They were the two middle children.”
The couple buried their surviving son this past year. Their surviving daughter Tammy Brandt lives nearby in the Phillips area.
The couple attribute their faith to their optimism and ability to overcome life’s challenges and tragedies. Art taught Bible school at their Baptist church for decades.
After the service the couple returned to live in Phillips. But they were very active and traveled all over the world as tourists and as part of a traveling dance group that performed everything from polkas and square dancing to folk and ballroom in around 47 different countries.
“We danced with a small group on the Great Wall of China,” Art said of their trip in the mid 1980s before the major changes took place to modernize China. “We danced in Tiananmen Square. The people were all smiling and clapping. They loved us.”
The Lord has blessed us so mightily, he added.
The couple believes that the organic garden they have used for their vegetables since 1966 is a key to their longevity. They don’t like to have food that is exposed to chemicals.
“Back in the old days, everything was actually really organic,” Hallie said, noting their parents lived well into their 90s.
Art and Hallie Fox have been interviewed extensively regarding his service in World War II including for the Library of Congress and the Wisconsin Historical Society.
