Bill Nickel was born in Toledo, Ohio on May 7, 1920. His parents, Bill and Jenny Nickel, lived in a big house with his grandparents, an aunt and uncle and two female cousins.
Willard B. Nickel
His father, Willard T. Nickel, worked as a draftsman with Willis Overland Motors, the second largest manufacturer at that time in the new and growing automobile industry.
When he was two, Willard and Jenny moved to Flint, Michigan and a job as a draftsman at Buick. The rest of the extended family soon followed. Bill Nickel, and his younger brother Jim, spent their early childhood first in Flint and then in 1925 the family moved to a large cottage, sometimes described as a log cabin, on Long Lake, near Grand Blanc, Michigan. It was about 20 miles from Flint. They lived there from 1925 until 1932, when their father bought a farm, also in Grand Blanc, as Bill was starting seventh grade.
America was firmly in the grip of the Great Depression, so a working farm with cows, pigs, sheep and chickens was a practical move. Even though there was no electricity or running water. And an endless amount of chores to do and responsibilities to be taken.
His mother was a
professional musician, active in the Saint Cecelia Society and the
Flint radio station, where she was the Program Director and staff
violinist, and the Flint Symphony, where she was first violin.
She was also a member of a trio that traveled around the
state putting on concerts, with her husband usually doing the driving.
After graduating
from high school, he
took
business classes at Flint Junior College, living at home. It
was 1937 and the
Great Depression was still in full force. A first semester
tuition bill of $25 made college a possibility that no one in the
family had ever experienced.
He did very well in his classes but lost one full year to a serious strep infection. He graduated with an Associates degree in business administration in 1940. He was 20.
He took a job in the Accounting Department at Allison Motors in Indianapolis, where the rest of the family had moved, when his young life took a sudden and unexpected turn on December 7, 1941. Classified IA, he and his brother Jim both enlisted in the US Navy on Deember 8.
At first, he was able to return to school under a special Navy program, but by 1943 he was called to active duty as an Ensign on the destroyer USS Brown.
