June 12, 2002
Deferred graduation day
World War II veteran earns high school diploma
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Shyly acknowledging the standing ovation, Art Secor crossed the stage at the Kresge Auditorium and received his high school diploma Saturday morning.
One of hundreds of Traverse City West High School graduates, Secor was different in some significant ways from the other graduates: he is 76 years old, married and retired, not to mention a father and grandfather.
Secor received a diploma thanks to a state law passed in December retroactively granting them to veterans whose wartime service cut short their high school education.
Secor's granddaughter, Crystal Majszak, and great grandniece, Amanda Wilkins, also received their diplomas that day. Sharing graduation day and parties with her grandpa was no problem for Majszak.
"I'm very, very proud of him," she said.
Retired after 36 years with the Traverse City State Hospital, Secor has no regrets about his circuitous route to a high school diploma.
"It was quite an honor," he said.
Secor's wife of 48 years, Ann, said that her husband was pleased to receive his honorary degree.
"I don't think the lack of a diploma has been preying on his mind but he was really proud to get it," she said. "Especially today when they all stood up and clapped for him."
Secor quit school in the ninth-grade in 1942, when his older brother, Edwin, enlisted in the Army. He quit to preserve the family farm, which his father, who had lost a hand in a farming accident, could not run by himself. Just 16, Secor committed to helping his family even though he already knew he did not want to be a farmer as an adult.
"My dad said he'd sell off the cows and everything when my brother enlisted, but I knew my brother wanted to farm when the war was over," said Secor, who was born in the family farmhouse.
Secor thought about returning to school after the war ended and his brother came home.
"But after three years I wasn't interested," said Secor, who attended the Howard School on East Long Lake Road through the sixth-grade, the Elmwood School in seventh and what is now the Central Grade School for junior high. "It used to be the farm kids only went to the eighth-grade."
Instead, Secor enlisted in the Army in December of 1945, where he spent 25 months of his three-year enlistment in Japan as part of the post-war police action. He served with the Army Airborne in the 674th parachute field artillery battalion. He learned welding and was a driver and mechanic there, trades that helped him get jobs after the war.
In the long run, Art Secor's sacrifice as teenager paid off because his brother farmed the land for years. The 80-acre homestead was always a modest farm, with never more than 12-14 cows. It had been founded by Secor's great grandfather in the mid-1800s and, because of Secor's help, remained in the family until 1968.
Secor and his wife lived on the farm for a few years after they married until they moved away permanently in 1956. Ironically, Secor spent a few years working on the farm at the Traverse City State Hospital before he moved to other positions, including a 20-year stint as a driver transporting patients and chasing runaways.
While he is glad he preserved the farm for his brother, he has no regrets about leaving it himself.
"It's hard, dairy farming was hard,' said Secor, who remembers driving the farm's milk to the Maxbauer Diary. "You had to milk the cows three times a day seven days a week. Even if you went out on a Saturday night, you had to get up at seven the next morning for the cows, no matter how you felt."