I am Robert E. McCullough B.A., Arch., I was born at Fort Dix New Jersey (U.S. Army Base) on February 29, 1952 (A Leap year) , to Major Joseph F. McCullough Sr. and Catherine J. McCullough (Carvin). My father was a battlefield infantry officer in the United States Army. My mother was a house wife rearing four boys, and I was the youngest. My Father a veteran of WWII (Italian Campaign, France, Germany and Austria Campaign’s), when I was born (1952) he was at war in Korea. Upon his return we moved abroad and we were stationed in Europe at Saint Johann military outpost in the Alps of Austria.
We traveled throughout Austria and to Saltzburg (5 km.) from St. Johann and most notably Blumbach an officers retreat and the castle/home once owned for 500 years by Arch Duke Ferdinand. Arch Duke Ferdinand was assassinated in Serbia that triggered WWI. The house was then purchased by the Steel King of Germany, Alfred E. Krupp. I enjoyed Austria and Blumbach. On the weekends at this retreat we had ponies to ride, archery, horse shoes, fishing, hunting, games, woods to hike in and mountains to climb. The entire castle/retreat was decorated with huge antelers and deer heads of the hunting in the mountains of days past, a remarkable sight through the eyes of a child. Then word came the Russian occupation of Vienna has ended and the United States Government agreed and reassigned my father to Munich Germany (1956). I loved Munich the 1956 Octoberfest and Christmas and all the fabulous architecture. I even took a trip to Dachau death camp where 45,000 German Bavarian citizens were experimented on and exterminated by the German Air Force. My father and mother was born and raised in Brooklyn N.Y. where education is everything and “believe me”, I did see everything that was to see in Europe,(Seventeen countries). I even had a return trip to Europe for another military assignment at Nuremberg Germany 1961 after the Berlin Wall went up. This was a very scarey time as a child even with the Cuban Crisis and all the military manuevers going on around me and the movies, “The Alamo”, “Sound of Music” and “Judgement at Nuremberg” were all playing at the base theatre. That was my escape. In elementary school I won two drawing prizes one for tooth brushing poster and the other for book studies poster my introduction to drawing competions, as a third grader. I learned early on, all about military operations- afterall, the officer housing at Dambach had even installed a helicopter port for evacuation purposes in the event the Russians started WWIII. The city of Nuremberg Germany has history everywhere like the thirty year wars castle in my Black Forest backyard that I could play in. Albrecht Durer the 15th century artist and Charlamagne the King of Germany all were here in the history of Nuremberg Germany. “Yes”, I had a grand childhood in Europe. I even returned on an Oceanliner from Hamburg to the Brooklyn Harbor, New York.
My father, Major Joseph F. McCullough Sr. ended up retiring at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. I did spend nine months as a teenager living in Leominister and attending seventh grade. It was the summer of 1965 dad and mom loaded up the trailer and station wagon and now we had a little sister so five kids piled into the car and off we went to California on Route 66 an historical vacation and journey across America.
I saw all of the great sites and Parks, city’s, Painted Desert, Grand Canyon etc… and fishing, camping, and site seeing. I had enough of traveling by the time we arrived in San Diego California at the age of thirteen. We ended up renting an apartment in Pacific Beach for nine month’s while dad and mom found and bought a nice home in the country where horses were a common sight, “Poway” California. ( Indian for “Meeting of the Valleys). After graduating Poway High school (early 3 yrs), I was admitted to U.C.S.D. Revelle College a pre-medical and science curriculum. After a year of studies in Greek, Latin and Ancient Philosophy, I knew since seventh grade I was going to be an Architect. I applied and was accepted to The College of Environmental Design, Architecture School at the University of California, at Berkeley. The year of 1973 at Berkeley was exciting times the Vietnam war was ending and the atmosphere was filled with ideals and intellectual pursuits and that we are this generation that can change the world with innovation and creating new frontiers. Architecture to me was the Goddess of Wisdom, of the Holy Grail of Architecture. My focus in Architecture was more in Art and Sciences Form follows function, and After four focused years of University level studies, on the tri-quarter system, I should mention, I completed one full year of graduate classes in advance course work with Solar Energy passive/active systems I was ready for the real world of “Architecture”. I also am the only receipant of three architecture Prizes at CAL in the history of the University of California at Berkeley. It reminds me of my third grade achievements at Nuremberg Germany. My mother and father could now be proud of me, I achieved dad’s motto: “EDUCATION,EDUCATION,EDUCATION.” I then headed south to Del Mar California beach town and Racetrack Resort on the Pacific Ocean (San Diego). I felt like I was in heaven and starting off in a small Architectural presentation design business of drawing and three dimensional architectural scale models.. I then expanded from a beach house home office, to and office building that I designed in downtown San Diego. For several years of feast and famine I hit the circuit of corporate employment at McGraw-Hill/ F.W. Dodge Construction Division and then south to Houston for high rise building design then to Los Angeles for more land development projects/golf courses and resorts. Traveled to the east to New York N.Y. , Boston back to San Diego and then entered the field of politics in the mayor’s race for San Diego. I found that many public projects were sweet deals for the same old, “GOOD OLD BOY NETWORK,” compromising all the principles of Architecture for Corporate Greed. I took a stand against the “Machine” in San Diego and started recalls of seated elected members of the council. Two years later the mess was cleaned up and the people of San Diego are now engaged throughout San Diego in “Democracy”. I then did what a good son is supposed to do, “I took care of my parents”, who had failing health and eventually they passed away but they did live a wonderful life and a marriage of fifty years.
I then left San Diego California to Arizona to start over and a new life. I Went to Phoenix then Flagstaff then Las Vegas, all the way to “San Francisco.” I discovered San Francisco needs a re-juvination and rebirth of creativity in; “Vision, Imagination and Leadership.”
Thank you,
Robert E. McCullough B.A., Arch
$ Donations to: Robert E. McCullough B.A., Arch. 729 Filbert Street San Francisco Ca. 94133
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“THE FAMILY GENEOLOGY HISTORY.” ____________________________________________
According to my family oral history of the McCullough’s it is as follows: my ancestor of Scotish and Irish decent was known by the name of Thomas McCullough who sailed on a ship from Belfast Ireland, to Brooklyn N.Y. In 1848 during the infamous “Potato Famine”, he was only in his twenties and he married an Indian Princess of the Mohawk tribe that had migrated from up-state New York to Manhattan. At the time there was a shortage of women in America. He had two brothers who traveled with him, their names were James and Michael. Thomas was a laborer on the docks of Brooklyn. He had a son who became a Tug Boat Captain in New York harbor. His son was named Vincent who was the father of my grandfather and worked the Harbor of N.Y., N.Y. My grandfather Charles Vincent McCullough was born in 1898 and went on to become a New York police officer and graduated from the Police Academy in 1919. He went on to marry (Violet) and had five boys and two girls. His beat was in Harlem and at Christmas time he would bring home to his house ten children, who were negro Americans. They became his loyal friends in the neighborhood. My dad told me my grandfather was a strict disciplinarian and he would kick you in the ass and tell you if I catch you one more time I’ll tell your mother. In 1925 my grandfather Charles V. McCullough was on patrol in another burrough in the city when a robbery was taking place at a taylor’s shop. He arrived on the scene and single handedly caught seven criminals and arrested them for armed robbery. He was awarded the Police Medal of Valor and was awarded the medal by the mayor of New York on the steps of Tammany Hall in Manhattan (1926).
My five uncles, Brother, Charles, Gerald, Thomas,and my father Joseph, were all in World War II. Charles, Gerald and Thomas were already in active duty Army and Navy and my dad went into the U.S. Army and graduated in the third graduating class of Officers Candidates School (OCS) at Fort Benning Georgia as a 2nd Lt.. Charles the oldest was Army Air Corp. Sargeant Military Police in London England. Thomas was a gunnery in the Navy on the Liberty ships to and from New York to England. Gerald McCullough was Sargeant Major and was one of the first volunteers of the 101st Airborne Division, which was newly created. He dropped into NORMANDY by parchutte on June 6, 1944 and was wounded and was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. At the time of Normandy, known as “OVERLOARD,” my father was one of the American troops who had liberated Rome from the Nazis and had them on the run to Germany. My father was a second Leutenant at Monte Casino when his 1st. Leutenant was killed in action and my father received a battlefield promotion with the 36th Infantry Division/ 5th Army under General Clark. My father came ashore on the landing at Salerno. They fought there way up the boot of Italy and liberated Rome. My father was on leave in Rome at the Vatican and he had a private audience with Pope Pious XII. After my father liberated Rome his Division (36th) was re-organized for the invasion of Southern France and landed August 15, 1944 on the beaches of Marseille France (Operation Dragoon). This was the second land invasion for my father and it is said to be the most perfect exucuted water invasion in the history of amphibious landings in War History. The French Forces in the landing spearheaded into Paris and saved Paris from destruction by the Nazis. The 36th Division was fighting in France all the way into Germany with the 442nd Regiment. The 442nd Division was an all Japanese American Division, and the most highly decorated Division in the history of American Military War History. The 36th Division went into the country of Austria and the war soon ended. I should note the 36th Infantry Division had also captured several notorous Nazi War Criminals who met there fait at NUREMBERG GERMANY’s PALACE OF JUSTICE for war crimes. Other family members like the Daly family who was married to my grand mothers sister Margret was John Daly who was the co-founder at the turn of the century of the Long Shoreman in Brooklyn, New York. She was a school teacher. Then on the other side of the family was the Johnson family who built the Battleships of WWI and owned the TODD SHIPYARDS in Brooklyn, New York. His four daughters after their father’s death gave the family fortune to the Catholic Diocese in Brooklyn, New York. They joind the Catholic Church, all four daughters as nuns. My mother’s uncle who fought in WWI Pvt.1st.Class Cornelious Conway was killed in action November 3, 1918 at the Muesse Arrogone, France. He should have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and Purple Heart for going beyond the call of duty, as he saved his entire company. and he is buried there to this day in the Muesse Arrogone American Cemetary. I am the only one in my family who did not serve in the United States military, and I was the most likely one in my family that was assumed to attend West Point, or so my father thought, but I drew number 306 in the Vietnam Lottery. These are the underlying facts of my family’s history as I know it and “they (family) told it”. History has proven again and again that, “Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat the lessons of history.”
Thank you,
Robert E. McCullough B.A., Arch.
Cash ($) Donations to further, “Green Building” and Solar Energy/Environmental Design Research can be sent by certified check and or money order to: Robert E. McCullough B.A., Arch. 729 Filbert Street San Francisco Ca. 94133
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