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After graduating from high school in 1947, Bud enlisted in the United
States Navy and served his first five years. During this time, he sent
most of his paycheck back to Nebraska for his mother to save for
him. He also reportedly sent home his pool and poker winnings,
which often exceeded his pay. He briefly left the Navy in 1952,
returning to Nebraska to attend Lincoln School of Commerce, where
he earned an accounting degree. He reenlisted in the Navy in 1955
and remained on active duty until 1970 and in the Fleet Reserve until
1980. He retired as a Chief Petty Officer with his principal work
serving as an aircraft supply clerk. His career included assignments in
San Diego, CA; Jacksonville, FL; Memphis, TN; Guam; Yokosuka and
Atsugi, Japan; Litchfield Park, AZ; Whitbey Island, WA; and aboard
the U.S.S. Pine Island, U.S.S. Sicily, U.S.S. Shangri-La and
U.S.S. Independence.
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In 1959, Bud married Yoko Sugiyama, a young Japanese girl from
Yokohama. "May", as she was known to her American friends and
family, shared Bud's love of photography and together they took
thousands of pictures of Japan. By then, Bud's coin hobby had
sparked friendships with local coin dealers and even part-time
employment in a California coin shop.
When Bud retired from active duty in 1970, he was stationed at
Imperial Beach, San Diego, and the couple remained there until
May's death in 1977. The couple had no children, so after his wife's
death Bud returned to Nebraska to be near his remaining family. He
said on numerous occasions that he could never marry that well
again, so there was no use trying.
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Ten years earlier, while May was still living, Bud had purchased a
home in Red Cloud for his parents. However his father died suddenly
after only three years in the house and by 1977, his mother was
ready to trade the large house for the convenience of an apartment.
Bud moved into his own house in Red Cloud, where he was to remain
for the next 30 years. After many years of living in remote places and
seeing his family only occasionally, he was now living only 40 miles
from most of them. He quickly became a regular fixture at holidays
and visited at least monthly during excursions to the larger city for
groceries.
Bud read both fiction and nonfiction voraciously and was very well
informed and outspoken politically. For the last 20 years or so of his
life, he was a registered Independent and would have been described
as extremely liberal by most Nebraskans.
Through the final three decades of his life, Bud lived alone in his
Victorian home in Red Cloud, quietly collecting coins through the
mail. He typically spent the lion's share of his monthly pension on his
hobby. He processed his monthly coin orders in his kitchen office,
where the once off-white wallpaper is now dark brown from pipe
tobacco smoke.
One of Bud's many relatives, his nephew Ralph Epp, is both a coin
collector and a poet. Ralph penned a moving poem about "Uncle Bud"
that remains a family favorite. It is reproduced here with the family's
permission.
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