William Kevish was born in 1910, the first child of Michael and Helen Kevish, in Joliet, Will county, IL. William Kevish is his full name, no middle name, which is somewhat uncommon. His formal schooling lasted through the sixth grade. In WWII, he enlisted in the Marines and was initially sent to the recruiting depot at the Marine Corps Base in San Diego, CA. After that, they sent him back to school, this time to Aviation Maintenance school in Memphis, TN. Upon completion of that training and attaining the rank of Private First Class, he was sent to Guadalcanal to repair planes there.

After returning to San Diego and being promoted to Corporal, he was sent to the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, NC, for additional training or to repair aircraft there. After that, he was promoted to Sergeant and sent to Headquarters Squadron 51 in New Bern, NC, for about six months. Less than a year before the war ended, he returned to the west coast, to Marine Corps Air Depot Miramar in San Diego, where he was honorably discharged 15 Oct 1945.

Back in Illinois, he married Charlotte Jean Chapman in 1951, and shortly after their second child was born in 1955, the family moved to Fort Lauderdale, FL. There, William worked as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service. The photo to the right shows him on his rounds, delivering mail to a house. Check out that huge heavy leather shoulder bag the mailmen used to carry the mail! The bag itself must have weighed 10 pounds, and then when you add the weight of all that paper, it was really heavy. And the mailmen actually walked up to every door and placed the mail in a mailbox right on each house. No driving around in vehicles and sticking the mail into big community mailboxes for those guys, no sir, they were manly men! He wore a uniform when delivering the mail, but I do remember he owned a copy of The Barefoot Mailman (about a mailman in Florida) signed by the author Theodore Pratt. 😆

William’s main hobby was bowling, and he was usually on some bowling team in a league, along with Charlotte. He bowled several 300 games in his lifetime.

William was also an accomplished accordian player, and played in a band on weekends at the Yankee Clipper Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. At the time, that was one of the best hotels in the city. After their divorce, they all moved back to Joliet, where William continued playing the accordian, and developed somewhat of a reputation in that city (a few times when I met someone and they heard my name, I was asked if I was any relation to “Bill Kevish the accordian player”). I’m not sure how many songs he wrote or co-wrote, but I did find his copyright for one song, registered 06 Jul 1937. The title is “Take it easy–take it slow” and the melody was apparently written by Willard Herring, but the copyright to the unpublished work is to Bill Kevish, Lockport, IL.

Some others I have found since then, that he had copyrighted:

• Just another night in June, c. 03 Aug 1931 (words and melody)
• That’s why my skies are blue, c. 27 May 1929 (words; music by David Reed)
• Where somebody is waiting there for me, c. 03 Aug 1931 (words and melody, fox trot)