Page 10 May 27, 2021 EL SEGUNDO HERALD
Dick Upton from front page
The fight was an overwhelming victory for
Indians, who were led into battle by several
major Native American titans, including Crazy
Horse. The visions of Sitting Bull had inspired
it. The U.S. 7th Cavalry, a force of 700 men,
suffered the major defeat while commanded by
Custer. Five of the Cavalry’s twelve companies
were annihilated, and Custer was killed, as were
four of his male relatives; the total U.S. casualty
count included 268 dead and 55 severely
wounded (six died later from their wounds).
The battle and events in the tumultuous
ensuing decades in Montana, which became
a state in 1889, piqued the interest of Upton,
and he began a career documenting that
locales events and that period in Western
American history.
El Segundo resident Todd Felker considers
Upton a long-time friend. During our phone
conversation, Felker shared that he used to,
back in the ’90s, do some computer work for
Upton. “(Upton) has lived in town forever,”
Felker shared and is “Probably one of the
countries foremost experts on General Custer.
He has written a lot of books, published a lot
on topics related to that facet of the Civil War.”
Felker said that Upton did not limit his interests
to researching post-Civil War history. “He has
been in some bands, played baseball until up
into his 70’s, late sixties at least, and has a
lot of interesting baseball stories,” Felker said.
As he entered his golden years, Felker said,
Upton continued working, writing, editing, and
publishing his books and processing orders on
websites such as Upton and Sons.
On the sporting side, Upton was always a
baseball pitcher, Felker added. Once he entered
military service, Upton played on a ‘club’
baseball team in the Army, hoping to move
up to the varsity army team, but his superior
officer nixed that idea. Undeterred, Felker said,
Upton seized an opportunity to pitch against
the regular Army team and proceeded to shut
them down, which prompted a keen baseball
observer, and Army General, to inquire “who
is that kid on the mound?” who was stifling
the bats of the top-seeded team in the long-ago
held Army tournament.
Upton said that “Baseball and the Civil War
era were two things that I seemed to excel in.
I wasn’t very verbal,” he admitted. He was
born and raised in Flint, Michigan, in 1933,
“a great time,” he said while noting that “Flint
(today) is a grim place, but in those days, was
a wonderful place. Work was good, and people
were buying second homes. It was wonderful.”
Upton said that both of his parents were from
Canada and that his mother was the child of
a “well-off” family and had inherited “some
Dick Upton and Wife Frankie. Photo Courtesy of Doug Westfall.
money.” Because of health issues, the family
was counseled to relocate to California and
landed in Culver City more than 70 years ago.
He was, at the time, favoring playing baseball
and plying his musical chops on the tuba while
also sharpening the verbal skills that he deemed
necessary to develop in his new environment.
He attended Venice High School, continued
refining his tuba talents, met people by playing
baseball, and became a standout pitcher. Upton
related that he was not overpowering on the
mound, but gave credit to a childhood Michigan
friend, who saw that Upton had potential on
the hill, and as soon as Upton grew a bit, he
started to have success on the mound.
Upton flashed back some seventy years
ago, remembering that he pitched against El
Segundo High School at a long-ago raised field
on Arena St., a prep baseball game contested
more than seven decades ago; Upton said that
he struck out the first four batters.
Following the baseball trajectory, Upton
played service baseball while he was serving
the United States in the Korean War. He also
won pitching accolades in American Legion
baseball.
He received a scholarship to Loyola Marymount
University, but that did not work out too
well. “I was successful there, but I wasn’t mature
enough and just could not keep my grades up.
Lost my scholarship, so I went into the U.S.
Army.” He later sojourned to Alaska to play
summer ball in the Alaska Baseball League,
a league that still endures. It was around that
time in his sporting life, Upton said, that his
aspirations to climb the ladder of professional
baseball were doused. “I found out that you
had to be,” Upton said, “more than just good.”
As a tuba player, he was considered by
those who knew music as “more than just
good.” Like baseball had, his tuba playing
opened “a lot of doors” for him. He said that
he played “symphonic, operatic stuff,” but to
pay the bills, Upton realized he “had to get
a job.” He landed employment with the Bank
of America in Culver City, ascending to the
post of lending officer. He got hitched to his
wife Frankie, a schoolteacher, and decided to
leave his B of A job and return to school, “even
though I was a terrible student.” As an older
returning student, Upton said he got “serious,”
to not be derailed by extracurricular activities,
including baseball.
Upton later landed a job in the Wiseburn
Unified School District, teaching instrumental
music and leading the student band. He was
also playing the tuba professionally, working
with what he termed “wonderful, wonderful,
conductors and musicians.” In the late ’50s
and the early ’60s, a time frame Upton called
“the golden age of the Wiseburn District,” he
said school districts were always looking for
“winning football coaches, and successful band
directors,” who could help entice parents and
their children to enroll in the district.
Upton said that the prior band director in
the district was “a better musician than me,”
but that his musical leanings, Upton noted,
mentioning Mozart, were not the type of tunes
that were necessarily helpful in motivating a
teenage musician of that era.
Upton said budget cuts threatened his music
program, which was eventually axed. He went
to the superintendent and tried to devise a solution
and broached a unique option. Upton was
slated to teach daily in the classroom, which
he was not too keen about. He offered to pay
someone else to teach the class ($100 bucks
a day at the time). “So, I paid $18,000 dollars
to “continue the privilege of teaching band and
orchestra.” That game-plan fizzled-out, however,
only lasting for a year, but Upton said that it
was “Quite an experience, glad that I did it.”
So how did a Michigan lad, by way of
Southern California, become immersed in post-
Civil War history and the demise of General
Custer? Upton got married to a woman from
Billings, Montana, (Frankie) whose grandfather
was stationed at Fort Custer all those years
ago. Frankie’s grandfather was involved in
the Cavalry.
Said Upton: “I wanted to find out more about
grandpa,” but in the pre-Google days, that was
not an easy task. He said that Fort Custer was
built one year after the Custer battle, but that
the Custer battlefield had been “completely
wiped off of the map.”
Book publisher Doug Westfall of The Paragon
Agency has been working with Upton for 25-orso
years. They met about a quarter-century ago
when both were attending book-related events
in Los Angeles and formed a partnership that
exists to this day.
“He has published more books on Indian
Wars and Custer’s Last Stand than any other
publisher,” Westfall said. “He is the champion
of Western history, and we applaud that,” while
noting that Paragon is planning to publish
another Upton book this summer. “You have
to hand it to the guy for what he has done,”
Westfall said.
As for his support of the continuing sometimes
somnambulant Detroit Tigers (although
they did garner a recent winning streak), Upton
offered that “They win just enough to break
your heart.” Alas, when this story was filed,
the Tigers sported a not-so robust 17-26 record,
good enough to be ensconced in fourth place
in the American League Central Division.
Adding a little more local flavor to the story:
When local baseball icon George Brett was
signed by the Kansas City Royals more than
50 years ago, he was jettisoned by Royal management
to play his first professional season in
Billings, Montana. Obviously awfully familiar
with the Montana environs, Upton traveled to
the unofficially christened “Big Sky Country”
to watch Brett play. The future hall-of-famer
ascended from the dugout to speak with the
Upton’s. “I am not hitting now,” Brett said, “but
I am going to start hitting.” It seems to have
worked out OK for Mr. Brett, right?
The Uptons have called El Segundo home
for more than 50 years, and Dick said that
that is a timeframe that he has cherished. He
has met “A group of really decent people,” he
said, calling the friends and business associates
that he had made “keepers, people that I
am proud to cross paths with, and I hope that
never ends,” noting how El Segundo locals’
band together to help out their neighbors. “I
hope that the city stays that way.”
The people who have “crossed paths” with
Upton probably feel the same way. •
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