Washington to Kentucky

Earthquakes & Tulips

In one of my other writings I mentioned Enumclaw, WA in later years when Terry and Rick were little we went out on vacation to visit Nick & Martha Gelsvik while out there our car broke down so we ended up staying out there from April of 1948 to April of 1950 when we moved back to Mitchell.

Crack in path at Green Lake following earthquake, ca. April 13, 1949 Courtesy MOHAI (Neg. PI-22343)

Part of the time we lived in the Seattle area, and were there when the 1949 earthquake hit.  Bob was working for Boeing Aircraft then, he said the overhead lights swung back and forth but didn’t come down.  Just lucky!  The house we were living in was a new, we were the 1^st occupants, and it cracked the foundation all around.  Terry and Rick were playing out in the side yard, which had no grass planted yet and was still  gravel & dirt, they were skinned up on their legs and arms.  I was inside but couldn’t get out until the shaking stopped.

New Madrid Seismic Zone

Hope never to experience another one, although living in Kentucky it’s a great possibility.  The largest fault line and recorded quake in US happened just across the Mississippi on the New Madrid Fault back in 1811-1812 had continued aftershocks over that 2 year period.  It is said that the church bells in Boston rung from the 1^st big one and was felt all over eastern US.  We’re just across the river from it, and have had several light ones.  Julie may remember the one we had while Ed was in the hospital in Paducah before he died.  There are several fault lines in our area of Kentucky that join the New Madrid Line.

Kentucky Life

The Douglas Dam early in its construction in 1942.

That is one reason I am happy I’m not living in Ledbetter anymore.  If the big dams go out, there is fear  in a big quake they would, it could possibly wipe out a lot along the Ohio River.  I guess when they were built that possibility was considered as a large priority.  Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley are both larger than the lakes on the Missouri river at Plankton & Chamberlain in South Dakota.  They are the ones built during the “Franklin Roosevelt era” of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) project; you might read about it in school.

Tulip & Daffodil Festivals

While living in Washington we often drove around just to see the scenery.  In the early spring the Puyallup Valley is a mass of colors.  Whole fields of one color, and another; it is where most of the tulips are raised for the whole US and is something to see.  As you come around the hillside the valley lays below and for as far as you can see its all colors.  They have a big spring festival every year too.

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

On one of our trips we were coming home through the mountains and a large rock came down and took the front motor area of our car, nearly scared us to death, but a higher power was with us that day.  There was a trucker coming not far behind us and he called help for us.  We were all fine – scared yes! But OK.  Washington State is such a beautiful state really like it out there.

But mornings were always difficult driving for your dad as early until almost noon it was very foggy.  He did have one accident while there because of it.  So he was not a happy as I, and we finally moved back.

Delores, Lawrence, Robert, Julia & Gus Stelzer Circa 1950

Also while there Grandma and Grandpa Stelzer came to see us.  Several days later one early morning, at like 4:30am, we were awakened by hammering on the roof.  Grandpa had found a couple loose shingles and was up repairing them.  Grandma gave him the dickens for waking everyone that early to to get it done right then.

We took them to Seattle, your Dad was able to get a pass to show them around the Boeing plant.  While walking around under the wing of one of the planes (where we shouldn’t have been) Grandpa sliced his head open, so we also were able tour an area which otherwise wasn’t on the tour, while seeing the nurse.

Again Grandma jawed him – all of it in German!!  He always seemed to find trouble or maybe it found him! He had done something like that when we lived at the lake in Mitchell too.  We had a water cistern and before each refilling it needed to be wiped down, he once cut his head open coming back up.  To bad I didn’t know German! I can only imagine what she was saying to him! LOL

 

Graduation, Marriage & Navy Boot Camp

Back in September of 1943 I started working at the Roxy Theater in my Senior year. By the time I graduated, in 1944, I had met Robert Stelzer. We had gone out a couple times, but not seriously until after that next year Valentine’s Day.

Draft Boards & Boot Camp

Gustave Stelzer

Bob & Bonnie Stelzer

Bob’s Dad, Gus, worked for the Parkston Draft Board and Bob still using the Parkston address as home, was faced with his number coming up so in April of 1944 he enlisted in the Navy. We had been dating all the time by now and the week before he left he asked if I would marry him when he came home on leave.   I said I would.

After enlisting in the Navy Bob was sent to Farragut, Idaho where the Navy Boot Camp is held for the western region of the U.S.  Just at the end of the training period while waiting for their leave papers they were helping load some trucks and his arm was injured.  He would be later sent to Oakland, Ca Naval Hospital with after his leave was over.   He came home and we were married June 13, 1944 in Vermillion, SD. We eloped!! Needless to say neither set of parents were very happy with us.!! The Stelzer parents were satisfied when they found out we had been married by a Congregational Minister, but it didn’t set well with mine at all. After his leave was up your Dad left for Oakland, in the weeks that followed in testing the Navy found out that the injured arm had a bone deformity (from birth) and so eventually in September of 1944 they released him on a Medical Discharge.

Presidential Change & Term Limits

Like I had said in another posting I was working at the Defense Plant, and continued on until the spring of 1945. It was early April when I left the plant influenced by learning I was pregnant with Terry.  Just a week after that was when President Franklin Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Ga.   A BIG shock to the whole nation, even though it had been evident for sometime his health had been extremely poor.  He was the only president I had ever known as he was in his fourth term of office.  It was after this that the law was passed setting term limits for US Presidents to 2 terms.   Harry Truman became our President and he signed the papers for the Atomic Bomb.

In this photograph are five of the aircraft’s ground crew with mission commander Paul Tibbets in the center.

Food Rationing & Stamps

During the time the war was going on, we had rationing of gasoline… sugar… meat… etc. and we had to have stamps for most everything.  When the stamps ran out if it wasn’t the end of the month that was just your tough luck…. no more till the 1st of the next month!!   It was really hard to do especially with the meat one.  I remember the only meat that I could buy with just a couple stamps was LIVER!!!  Never having been a favorite of mine, still decided if we were going to have meat. THAT was IT!! Found a recipe where you browned it in flour (that was rationed too) and then baked it in a tomato sauce with LOTS of onions.   Found out it wasn’t half bad, and now I really like it just browned with onions.   My kids, knowing their Dad’s eating habits an tastes, know what he thought of that meal.  His folks were no longer on the farm so they couldn’t help out.  We had lots-of-discussions, on my cooking, none which pleased him – OR ME… but we did live through it to better times.  By that spring… PEACE… had come in MAY, with Japan’s surrender, and in AUGUST… Peace with the defeat of Germany, and I was due in October.

 

 

WWII – Living Through History

The War Years

I recently purchased Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation“.  For those of the future, who may not know who Tom Brokaw is or was, he hosted the “NBC Nightly News on TV from 1982-2004.  He was a native of South Dakota, and in his early years of broadcasting he was on radio station WNAX in Yankton, SD, and he graduated from the University of SD.  The book he has penned is a reflection on the Second World War, and how it affected those who lived through that period of our history.

Until reading his book I really didn’t think much of myself really being a part of it, but yet I was, without conscious effort.  Even before the war started back in November of 1940 our country passed into law the first Conscription of men between the ages of 18 and 36 to serve in the Military, all who were in those age groups had to register immediately, and as each boy turned 18 he had to register.  In the following months many of our young men rather than wait for the “draft” to call them enlisted.   World conditions were very unsettled at this time as Hitler had already made his moves to take over much of Europe and England was already at war with him.  The sides were being drawn all over the world, and we while not actively involved were supporting England.  Then on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii.  The rest you can read in History  books  if you so chose to do so.

I was 15 years old on that Sunday when the news came over the radio wire (pre TV) and the nation was in shock.  At the time I heard the first reports, Anita (Nelson) Lucibella and I had gone skating at the rink in the Armory building next door to the “Corn Palace”.  It was just after 1:00pm our time when word came of the attack.  I don’t remember any of us skating that afternoon, only gathering around the radio, listening to the unbelievable reports coming.

All different age young people were there, and I remember many of the boys (soon to be men) saying they were going to enlist the next day as soon as they opened the doors.   Many of them were underage and so had to have their parents permission to enlist.  Everyone was just stunned that Japan would dare to attack US!!!  So little we understood the politics going on in Washington at that time.

Several of the boys my age of course were too young then, but by the time we were seniors in 1944 they enlisted as soon as they graduated.  In fact one boy in my senior class turned 18 in March and didn’t wait to graduate, he enlisted right then, leaving school to go.  He died on D-DAY on Omaha Beach in France on the first day, June 6, l944 in the first wave of men landing.  (I say men now because by now they were).  One of the teachers I had my Junior year had joined earlier and was also killed in the same invasion.

Three Mitchell men had died earlier in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and as they were all older than I in 1941 I didn’t know any of them. I remember the town started talking and planning on things it could do to help and how to protect if it (the war) should come reach our shores.  As remote as that seemed, who knew???  We had never expected Pearl Harbor either!!!   There were meetings to form groups to watch for planes, to be able to identify orders of poison gases, and blackout of windows at night, none of which we ever had to do.  BUT we were prepared!!!!

Bob & Bonnie in the “Radio Room”

I enrolled for the airplane identification and gases meeting.  Took classes in radio, and even built my own crystal set with which (we) the class would send and receive messages from the airbase men at Sioux Falls.  This is where my first interest in radio came from and in later years my husband, Bob and I became Amateur Radio operators of our own stations, but that  is getting ahead of myself 20 years in time.

In his book Tom tells about the war efforts of those who stayed at home, and in one chapter he is talking about the building and testing of the B-29 (B for bomber) which was being built in Wichita, Kansas by Boeing Aircraft.  This bringing tears to my eyes as I write, and a very large lump in my heart.  The main focus of the building was to have a plane that could reach Japan, making it possible to bomb the Japanese homeland and later deliver the atomic bomb, and end the war, which it did in 1945.  Earlier the B-24’s bombed Tokyo (the Jimmie Doolittle Raid), and those that made it without being shot down landed in China (then friends)!

Jimmy Doolittle Raid on Japan

In both of these planes I had a direct part.  In my Junior year I worked at the “Defense Plant” in the basement of Rozum’s old garage, the one where Dad worked.  This plant made aircraft engine parts for both the B-24 and the B-29.   Working the night shift, going to work at 9pm and getting off at 4:30am.  Carried a lunch, for our 1/2 hour lunch hour.  Worked that whole summer until school resumed in Sept.  Then again in my Senior year, starting even before I graduated, working the same shift.

The part I worked on was a piece that went into the engine and it had to be ground down to a 2-3 hundredth tolerance measured with a micrometer to near exact size.  If you over ground it you goofed BIG time!!  I can’t remember of doing that more than once or twice and really felt bad!!  It was assembly line, and when I finished my part it was handed on to the next person to do their part in it’s making.  I learned to take the machine apart to adjust when it got out of tolerance and to clean it and get it back in operation in as short a time as possible.

Until reading Tom’s book hadn’t thought about this part of my life in many years.  Each one of us who worked on those parts, could envision the piece we worked on, being the one, in one of the four engines of the “Enola Gay” the plane that delivered the first Atomic Bomb!!!  Right now as I think on what I’ve written my heart feels like lump in my throat and tears are streaming!!!   And only God knows…   And in reflection that is a blessing…  Whether it was or wasn’t it, it was an event that changed our world for all time to come.  It saddens me to think of those years, thinking about all those who died. Those I never knew and those I did.

IN MEMORY OF

Leo A Mackey, my Uncle who died in Tunisia, North Africa, was originally buried there, but in 1949  was returned to the States and Where is now buried on the family plot, next to his parents, in Calvary Cemetery in Mitchell, SD.

Fred Rush; My school friend, I’m not sure where he rests, but seem to remember he was brought back in 1949 also.

Francis Meyer, Louis Meyer & Martin Meyer; Three brothers all from Mitchell, all went to Notre Dame. Martin was in my class through the 10 grade.

Arthur Healy; My Junior year English teacher

John Knowling; Who was Caroline Hearne’s 1st husband.  Johnalyn’s father who was killed in a plane crash in Texas before Johnnie was born.

Raymond Kretschmer; He lived in the corner house of the 700 block on 5th Ave. a block from where I grew up.  He was lost when his ship was sunk.  The Navy named a ship in his honor for his bravery in saving others in the South Pacific

Roesler Bertram; Louise Weidenbach’s brother, Navy. MIA

Chris Props; His folks lived next door in corner house by my home.  Chris was Navy flier whose plane was shot down over the South Pacific.  His younger sister Henrietta and I were friends.

Other Links

South Dakota War Heroes

World War II – Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Historic Sites

Written by Bonnie Faughn, Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation” was originally published in 1999.

Dust Storms, Milk & Crackers

My Early Years

The middle 30’s brought a lot of first times.  Living through the “dust storms” we had, is something I hope never to see again.  Our front porch was surrounded by windows, I can remember helping Mom tear strips of cloth into narrow lengths, wetting them and stuffing them into the edges of the windows.  It was in the sheets, every corner of the house, you didn’t dare leave any food out, and you couldn’t afford to waste it so you had to put it under cover.

The Dust Bowl – Buried Farm Lot – South Dakota in 1936

One came up during school hours and they sent us home before it got too bad, but guess what!  I stopped with a little friend at her house and her mother wouldn’t let me go on as by that time you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.  Street lights had come on, but it didn’t help.  Don’t think we had a phone at that time, or maybe my little friends didn’t have one, but at any rate Mom didn’t know where I was, and nearly scared her to death.  It was several hours before it cleared up enough for me to go home.  By that time Dad and the Police were looking for me.  From then on, we were never sent home during storms, we were kept at school until someone came and got us.

Milk and Graham Crackers

One thing that was great from the 30’s, all children who were underweight for their age were given a morning break where we got graham crackers and milk.  I was one of the lucky or unlucky ones.  However you want to look at it.  I thought it was great.  Still love graham crackers and milk.

Milk & Graham Crackers

Once in a while (far between) we would go for a drive on Sunday and one time we were out near White Lake, west of Mitchell, and we pasted a Fields were the whole  Fields was mass of blue and white daisies.  They were about 2 foot tall will never forget the sight.  So often wish I had asked Dad to dig some of them up to take home.  They next year when we drove out that way again the farmer had plowed the Fields up and they were gone.  How tragic such beauty was lost forever. We went back for several years but they never came back.

20K Gather to Watch the Explorer II Lift Off 

Explorer II – Experimental Weather Balloon – South Dakota 1935

Also remember on one of those rare occasions going out to White Lake again to see the Experimental Balloon come down.  It was weather one that had been sent up for testing and had a gondola beneath it with (I think) 2 men in it.  The very first of it’s kind.  It was a real bog deal and they were telling on the radio as it was coming down just where it was going to land.  As I remember it had gone to the lofty heights of 7 miles.  There is a write up of it and I think even a piece of the balloon in the Balloon Museum at Mitchell, if your ever in Mitchell check it out.

Explorer II was a manned U.S. high-altitude balloon that was launched on November 11, 1935 and reached a record altitude of 22,066 m (72,395 ft). Launched at 8:00 am from the Stratobowl in South Dakota, the helium balloon carried a two-man crew consisting of U. S. Army Air Corps Captains Albert W. Stevens and Orvil A. Anderson inside a sealed, spherical cabin. The crew landed safely near White Lake, South Dakota at 4:13 pm and both were acclaimed as national heroes. Scientific instruments carried on the gondola returned useful information about the stratosphere. The mission was funded by the membership of the National Geographic Society.

World Fairs and Vacations

Franklin Genealogy

John & Kathryn (Gansen) Franklin

Since starting this I learned a little more about Granma Elizabeth’s side of the family, including the names of her parents.  John Franklin and Catherine Gansen were her parents, and she was one of 11 children.  John and Catherine are believed to have married in 1872 or 1873.  Her brothers were Joseph, born Jan 1874, Francis, born Oct 1880, and John (Jack), born March 3,1890, and sisters Margaret (Meg), born Aug 1876, Anna, born 1883, Mary, born Jan 21,1887, Caroline, born July 1, 1892, Leona, born ??? 16,1895 and Clara, born Sept 16, 1897.  Clara ( the only one I remember) was married to Elmer Miller lived in Dubuque, and has 2 daughters, Emmajean and JoAnn who is married to Clyde Boge.  Both girls still live in Dubuque.  I spoke with JoAnn about a week ago, and most of the above information came from her.  Plans are to visit her sometime this summer if possible.  She has the original wedding picture of our Great Grandparents (John Franklin & Catherine Gansen) and is mailing a copy for me.

World Fairs & Vacations

1933 Chicago World’s Fair

I can remember staying with Uncle Joe and his wife several times in the 30’s when we went to Chicago.  I remember him as a very tall man with coal black hair, and at that time he was quite old.  Dad and Mom had gone to the World’s Fair, in 1933, being held in Chicago that year.  On our way home, the first time I ever stayed in a mote; at Waverly, Iowa — NOW let me tell you THAT was a big deal!!  Even got to sleep in my own BIG bed!! Think that was the highlight of the whole trip!!  Also remember the streets at Waverly being lined with great large trees that met over the middle of the street making a tunnel to drive through for blocks.

Can’t remember what year is was but think it was 1936  when Grandpa, Granma, Aunt Lucille, her husband “Chick”, Uncle Fran, came and we all went to the “Black Hills”.  Going through the “Badlands” Grandpa said he thought they ought to rename it “The devils playground”.   He just loved it, had never seen things like that before — Neither had I — it was my first visit to the “hills” also.

Mount Rushmore, Black Hills of South Dakota

The Badlands in the Black Hills