If he had fewer distinctions of his own, the policeman probably would be known more generally by his family name, which
is McKeldin. He is the Governor's brother.
There are two reasons why the names of Patrolman “Podge” McKeldin and Gov. Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin aren’t
linked more frequently. One is that “Podge” has always been a great one for making his own way, without any outside
help. The other is that Podge achieved his aim, was already enjoying a certain success and renown, and had settled quietly
into his way of life long before his now famous brother made the grade.
The life histories of the two brothers are similar in many ways, with Podge's no less heartening than Teddy's.
Teddy, at an early age, displayed a flair for public speaking, and he parlayed it into governorship. At about the same
age Podge showed a flair for handling people, the way his brother handled language, and he has parlayed that into a career
fully as satisfying.
Podge was born 56 years ago at the southernmost end of Eutaw street, a neighborhood called Fishbottom. He calls himself
the eight-ball of the McKeldin family, because he was the eighth of eleven children. Teddy was tenth.
Through the toddler stage William Frederick McKeldin was known as Bill or Willie. When he, first began playing with the
other kids one of them dubbed him Podge.
Nobody ever knew why, but the name stuck.
One of the McKeldins' first distinctions was their family baseball team, one of the very few in the country.
"All of us were what you might call natural baseball players," Podge recalls. "Jimmy pitched, John was the catcher, Charles
on second" and George on third.
They're all dead now; Dad. too.
Ted was on first base, Ray was the shortstop, with Dad and me and Louis in the outfield."
But there wasn't a great deal of time for baseball while the McKeldin children were growing up. Podge was 11 when he weighed
the advantages of an education against those of a regular weekly paycheck. He decided upon the paycheck.
His first job was in a South Baltimore bottle factory. There, from 7 A.M. to 5 P.M., six days a week, he worked as a carryingin
boy. It was comparatively easy work, consisting of carrying newly blown glass bottles, one tray after another, from the glass
blowers to an oven in which the bottles would cool gradually.
The only annoyance was that he had to make up the time he spent hiding when the truant
officer came snooping around the neighborhood. .
After two years of it, at $2.50 a week, he got out of the glass business.
Podge’s next job was in a piano factory at Eutaw and West streets. For eighteen years, with rottenstone, powdered
pumice, bare hands and elbow grease, he rubbed the heavily varnished surfaces of pianos into the satiny gleam that lasts many
of them a lifetime.
Piano finishing brought a good worker from $35 to $40 a week, an excellent salary in those days.
In the latter stages of that career, however, Podge McKeldin decided that he would rather be a mounted policeman than anything
else. Why he wanted the job at the time he's never been able to understand. He'd never even been on a horse.
He became a member of the police force in 1927, as a patrolman in the Southwestern district.
In 1934 he transferred to the Northern district. In 1936 he got the transfer he wanted, to the Traffic Division as a mounted
patrolman.
He heard of the transfer on a Saturday, with Monday as the reporting date. On Sunday he went to the stables, told the stableman
who he was, and asked for a little instruction. All he needed to know was how to bridle a horse, how to saddle up, how to
mount and how to ride. .
His first official duty next day was to saddle up No.1 horse, the sergeant's.
After inspecting his work, the sergeant said: "It's good to see they've sent us a guy who at least has been around horses
before."
Oh, I've been on a horse before," McKeldin admitted modestly.
"I didn't tell him I'd only been on a horse once before," he recalls. "I figured that what he didn't see wouldn't hurt
him."
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