1.
Lloyd & Betty Wedding Picture February
11th, 1943
Oaklyn, N.J.
My kids had been excelling at wrestling from 8 and 11 years of age for about 4 years, when I decided to seek out Blackie (Boston Blackie as we identified him), to demonstrate my sons’ wrestling accomplishments then and future. I found that he had gone on to coach championship wrestling teams and wrestlers at West Chester State (WCS), where he was known as Mr. Machine, had eventually advanced to Director of Athletics at WCS, and was retired in his log cabin retirement home in the Poconos (Shohola, PA). One of the pictures in this sequence is of Lloyd and Betty in front of their log cabin.
My sons’ careers ended with knee surgery for Doug and Tim’s death. However I got to corresponding with both Blackie (Coach as she calls him) and his wife Betty, an athlete in her own right as an All American Hockey player. My former wife Vickie and I visited his Pocono home and stayed the night. Starting in 1984, I met with Blackie each year at the high school state wrestling championships at Hershey, PA each year until he could no longer go there.
While residing at the Poconos, he and Betty celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in the aftermath of a major snow storm. While there Kenny Mehan and I had a mini reunion together with Ken’s wife, Janet Sue. Four of the pictures in this sequence are of that event accompanied with family history.
He and Betty eventually moved to an adult community near Haddenfield, NJ (Southhampton) to be near their son Lloyd W Black III (Champ). I visited his home there with my brother Donald (LHS-48), who had wrestled for Blackie his senior year and had disliked him. After visiting his home and family with me in 1993, Donald came away as refreshed as I always was. One of the pictures in this sequence is of Don, Blackie, and me (left to right)
Blackie was far more intellectual and conversational than we as his protégées had found him to be, and it was always a pleasure visiting and talking to him and Betty about things historical and current. Blackie is now in a SNF facility nearby his wife, and I continue to chat by phone and my mail with her.
To finish, I’d like to repeat a WWII story he discussed with me:
- Blackie was a Naval officer and bomber pilot in the Alaska front during this war. On one mission, the weather was so bad, the mission could not be completed and he was ordered to dump his load of bombs at sea and return to base. Through their communications, he refused to dump the bombs fearing that the winds would take or damage his plane without the weight of the bombs. He eventually got permission and landed his bomb loaded plane safely to become eventually a member of the teaching staff at Lansdowne.
How better to demonstrate his mental toughness. My relationship with him has been a highlight.
Allen Eugene Gordon
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Llyod
& Betty Black circa 1989
5. 
Donald
L. Gordon (LHS 1948), Lloyd Black, Allen E. Gordon
taken in
1993.