Notes from Conversations with Mom: 1 June 2011

1 June 2011 

It was on this day that I started keeping dated notes when I talked to Mom on the phone. We talked almost every day for a while there. Wish I’d dated all the notes prior to that but am happy to have what I do.  

On this day Mom wanted to talk about WWII and the boys who served. There were a lot of them too, and ours wasn’t the only family who sent their boys off. Mom’s brother Camey Williams joined the Army and went to California for training. His best friend was Lonnie Kyle and he’s related by marriage on Mom’s side, somehow. Have just spent the better part of an hour trying to figure it out and can’t work it out. Ever get a stray person such as Lonnie Kyle? You know that there’s a connection but you just can’t make the pieces fit. 

 

Mom’s maternal grandmother Mam Whetstone is pictured with Nan Kyle in this photo above. Just don’t know who Nan is to Mam. This picture is dated 1939 and Nan appears to be pregnant. With Lonnie’s younger brother? Finding out who the Kyles were to our family is going to drive me crazy. 

While Camey was in California, so far away from little Frostburg, their hometown, he sees Lonnie! Lonnie yelled out, “Last time I saw you, you had pneumonia!” Which is strange thing to say, I first thought. 

But it was the truth! Camey and Lonnie and a bunch of the boys were playing down by the creek in January. It was frozen over, solid. Except for that spot Camey found when he cracked the ice and fell in. And he got pneumonia. He did however get an ambulance ride to the hospital. His first one. He was excited, very ill but excited. 

Lonnie also said that the last time he saw Camey he was a skinny little kid. Now, he said that Camey had turned into a man.  

 

 

That’s Uncle Camey on the right. I think this photo might have been taken in Frostburg at some point.  And I have no idea where that top one was taken, but it's not Frostburg.

 
The notation on this picture says that he was in Switzerland.  

Mom’s sister Dot had a childhood sweetheart named Harold. They grew up, fell or stayed in love and married. Uncle Harold Conrad also served but in the Navy. Cousin Steve knows his Naval history and stories of his service and someday I’ll have to get more information from him. Meanwhile, here he is in uniform. 

With his new bride, Aunt Dot.

 

 

Here he's on board a ship in the Pacific. Cousin Steve will know all of the details.

Thank goodness for cousins!

On Dad’s side of the family, his brother Bernie Kelly, was off to the European Theatre of war. When he got there, he spotted his brother-in-law Pete Fraley, his sister Christiana’s husband. Once they met again, Pete and Bernie started kidding around and Pete told him he was not regulation anything and was one of those “undesirables” they talk about. They had a good laugh! 

Kidding around was a brother thing in our family and it pops up in many family stories. Bernie was, I thought, the funniest of the uncles. Dad was funniest when he was with Bernie and they got into some close scrapes too, but all in fun. I don’t think anyone got arrested for any of their pranks, but I’m not totally certain.  

It’s said that Bernie stole watches from POWs, but maybe that’s just a made-up story told by the two other brothers. One day Bernie was walking around camp and saw this officer looking particularly pompous and thought, “Who does he think he is.” Then he realized that it was his brother Delbert!  

As I heard the story, the day the war was over in Europe Bernie grabbed a jeep and drove off to find Delbert to celebrate. Against odds, they found each other! 

 

Delbert John Kelly on the top and on the bottom, Bernie Kelly.  

 

Random Photo Saturday: Cousins and the uncle as boys

Last week I decided to start sharing some of the less used photos from Mom's collection that don't seem to fit into other posts but are interesting none the less. So this week I'm sharing two from the Conrads. Mom's sister married her childhood sweethearts and they had two boys, Butch and Steve.

To me, Uncle Harold was a quiet guy who raised hunting dogs and had a beautiful veggie garden in the yard. It's funny how we don't think of our childhood aunts and uncles as ever being children themselves, but this photo changed that. "Hey, Mom, who's this little guy," I asked. "That's Uncle Harold," she replied. Really?! Here's the picture of him, and tell me if this doesn't look like a little boy who plays indoors and not a man who is pretty much an outdoorsman.

 

 

Now here is Uncle Harold during WWII, in his captains uniform on the USS Anderson in the Indian Ocean. Quite a difference, huh?

 

 

 



So Aunt Dot and Uncle Harold married during the war but before he shipped out when she gave him an ultimatum;) Two children followed, both boys. Butch was born in 1944 and Steve came along in 1946. Butch was just too old for me to play with so I wasn't very close to him. But Steve and I were best buddies growing up. Here's a favorite picture of the boys in their little league uniforms.

 

 

You know, when I look at this picture of Butch and Steve I can see in their little faces the adult men they have become. But I can't do that with their father, Uncle Harold. Wonder why that is?

 

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/07/random-photo-saturday-cousins-and-uncle.html

Military Memories: Uncle Harold and WWII

Guest author for this post is Cousin Steve, writing about his Dad's service in WWII. Originally appeared in our family history newsletter, Spring 2011.

Harold Rae Conrad, as an enlisted man, 1942.

My dad, Harold Rae Conrad, Sr. was attending Frostburg State College, now Frostburg State University, in Allegany County, Maryland, when the first peacetime military draft was held prior to the USA getting into WWII. The bill was signed into law by FDR and the draft set in motion in October 1940. In the fall of 1941, dad was drafted even though he was in his senior year in college. According to dad, he was drafted, “because he was a registered Republican and the entire draft board were registered Democrats.” The original draft was to be for 12 months service, but shortly Pearl Harbor would change all that.

Harold went to Fort Meade for his basic training and then on to Norfolk . He had risen from the rank of private to Master Sergeant, the Army decided they needed more officers and that dad, with his 3 years of college and Sergeant ranking would make a good candidate. So in January, 1943 it was off to OCS, Officers Candidate School, to soon become a commissioned officer. He eventually achieved the rank of Captain before being discharged.

My mom, Dorothy Frances Williams graduated from Frostburg State and was teaching in the Baltimore area when she “laid down the law” and said they were going to get married or else. She had had enough of this long distance romance. So on Friday the 13th in November, 1942, Dorothy and Harold were married. Even the minister questioned whether they really wanted to get married on Friday the 13th!

Harold Rae Conrad and his young bride, Dorothy Williams Conrad, May 9, 1943.
 

Most of World War II had dad, and mom, stationed in Norfolk, Va. In September 1945 Dad made a cruise on the USS A. E. Anderson, aka “The Mighty A” to bring troops back to the USA. He served as a liaison officer for the troops with their Navy crew. Their destination was Karachi, India and back which had them traveling 16,200 miles. When they arrived back in New York, dad was discharged from the Army.

On the USS AE Anderson, 1945, Karachi, India

Postscript

Uncle Harold and Mom's sister Dot grew up together. They were childhood sweethearts and so it was no surprise to the family that they wed. Here are some items from Mom's archive that will give you a fuller picture of their young lives. Weren't they cute?!

A keepsake of Aunt Dots, a gum wrapper souvenir of their first date. Everyone called Harold "Cooney", a shortening of Conrad. Conrad - Coonrad - then Coonie. You know how kids are.

 

Harold and Dot's parents in the back row on a family fun day.

They were that close growing up.

 

The URL for this post is:

Military Memories: Overseas service & D-Day

What were they thinking when they got there? What was Uncle Bernie thinking on D-Day as he headed onshore in the landing boat carrying all his gear? Was he a strong enough swimmer? Would the waves pull him down? A prayer or two would have been offered, to be sure, and then he jumped.

Years later and after a couple of beers on a warm summer night he might be coaxed into telling the story of how he landed at Omaha Beach on the coast of Normandy on D-Day. He always put a humorous filter on it, making fun of himself and keeping it light while he made himself the butt of the jokes. The heaviness, the pure terror of it was well hidden. Here's a recap of the story he told about D-Day. Maybe we'll never know the full truth of it.

Uncle Bernie wasn't a strong swimmer, or at least he thought as much. Growing up during the Great Depression was hard enough with the five other siblings of his parents, Helen and Lee Kelly who lived in the tidy house at 89 West main Street in Frostburg, Maryland. There was no time at all for the kids of the family to enjoy the pleasures of summer in the community pool. So Bernie knew how to swim but hadn't spent enough time in the water to be confident in his ability. And there he was on the landing boat on D-Day expected to swim to shore while loaded down with his pack and gun.

 

Now I have to say here that my brother says he thinks he remember that Uncle Bernie landed the day after D-Day, but I'm not here to split hairs and Uncle Bernie is, sadly, no longer with us. Brother and I were saying that the old people are gone too soon and then we're left discussing how events unfolded.

 

The landing craft sustained small arms fire to such a degree that their progress was halted and so the drivers stopped in 8 to 10 foot waters instead of moving forward to shallower waters that would have allowed the men to walk ashore. The men's packs were big and heavy, holding three day's worth of food and supplies. Plus, they carried a bulky 8 pound rifle and heavy ammo. No life jackets either. And the water was a cold 54 degrees and rough because a storm had just passed.

 

So there Bernie was, maybe not too confident in his swimming skills, and he could easily see that they were stopping too far out, and then he could easily see that the men who jumped into the water with pack and rifle were sinking like stones. He refused to jump. So his sergeant pushed him. And of course he sunk like a stone.

 

He was a "good enough" swimmer and smart enough to figure out that he needed to lose that pack and ditch the rifle if he was going to survive to get to short, where a whole lot of hell was breaking lose. So that's what he did.

 

He made it onto the beach and saw the horrors of war and all the dead boys there. He took a rifle and a pack from the littered beach and started fighting for his life. 

 

Details get fuzzy at this point. The Fog of War they call it. Or maybe there were details Uncle Bernie didn't want to talk about so he just wrapped it all up in typical phrases often used to describe the scene.

 

Uncle Bernie lived to fight on. He made lieutenant at some point but was busted down for some infraction of the rules he probably didn't agree with. He served under General Patton and went on to the Battle of the Bulge. Yeah, he told stories about it all. But we could tell, the story he liked to tell the most was about landing on D-Day.

 

 

D-Day landing at Omaha Beach, "Into the Jaws of Death, June 6, 1944. Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

 

This post is following the blogging prompt for the month of May, Military Memories, from Jennifer Holik. Thanks, Jennifer!

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/05/military-memories-overseas-service-d-day.html 

Military Memories: Basic training and Mom and Dad's visit to Bernie

Mom and Uncle Bernie, Dad's brother, contributing to the War effort.
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, June 1942.

When WWII broke out the Kelly brothers, or at least two of them, went down to Cumberland from little Frostburg in Western Maryland, and enlisted. Dad knew he wouldn't pass the physical so he avoided the rush and waited to be called up. But his brothers got caught up in a patriotic fever and took themselves on down to Cumberland and signed up. Then off they went to boot camp at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, as so many other young men and women did.

The letters the boys wrote back to Dad - and Mom still has them - told a story of boys sheltered by a small town's embrace and then dropped into the harsh reality that was and still is basic training. Up early, marching in formation, and lots of discipline and structure. Let's just say that it didn't sit well, especially with Bernie who was sort of a free spirit who loved a good time.

Fort Bragg has been the home to 5400 service men in 1940 before the war. It had been one of the sites for the Civilian Conservation Corp during the Great Depression. A number of young men from the Frostburg area joined the CCC as a way to earn for their families when so many able bodied men were out of work and Mom's cousins were some of them. But the Fort Bragg population swelled to 67,000 at the start of the war and ballooned to 159,000 at the height of the war. The little southern town of Fayetteville at Fort Bragg exploded to overflowing. And at Fort Bragg there were never quite enough barracks to fit the population and water wasn't sufficient to the task especially in the evening when men needed to wash away the grime and dust of the day.

At the appropriate time when Bernie finished a phase of his basic training, Mom and Dad took the train to see him. Mom still remembers that the train ride was brutal and the train was over crowded and hot that June. Out of respect for the men in uniform all seats went to them so they could rest. Mom and Dad stood all night in the oppressive heat, holding on for dear life.

Fayetteville was full to capacity and all rooms taken. It was lucky for them that they had reservations, even if it was in an old run down boarding house. Mom still remembers that the sheets on the unmade bed hadn't been changed in quite a while, probably since way before Pearl Harbor. They slept fully clothed and on the covers. But they were lucky to have any room at all. The healing powers of time have wipes all memories of the shared bathroom they used on that trip. One can only imagine.

They saw Bernie and had great good fun, living for the moment. You can see it on Bernie's face in the photo below.

Uncle Bernie, Fayetteville North Carolina, 1942.

Mom also remembers that Fayetteville was a very different place than little Frostburg and a lot of it had to do with the treatment of African-Americans then. In particular, she was walking on a Fayetteville sidewalk and an older black man stepped off to let her pass. She didn't understand why he did that, and then after a moment, it sunk in. So sad that he had to do that. And he looked just like some of the older African-American men from Frostburg who walked on the sidewalks as they pleased.

I guess that in the days when the old Jim Crow laws were still in effect, the new needs of a world war was the first glance forward for many white young men. It must have been a real eye-opener. But it wasn't until 1965 that Jim Crow was stricken from the books.

The pictures below are a treasure to me, along with the numerous others in the photo file and not posted here. One can sense the urgency to capture the moment for later, in case. The faces are happy, and the sun was out that June, and that was all that mattered.

Bernie and his then girlfriend, Evelyn.

Dad and his brother Bernie.

Mom's first magnolia.

Bernie, Evelyn, Dad, and Mom, June 1942.

So here was Bernie, about to go on one of the greatest adventures of his life. From here he'd go to Europe and D-Day landing at Normandy, but grabbing a little fun with his girlfriend, his brother and wife before his wild ride. It was a time and place when anything was possible and the future very uncertain.


A special Thank You for this writing prompts for the month of May on the topic of Military Memories, from Jennifer Holik.


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/05/military-memories-basic-training-and.html

 

Military Memories: Women in the War, the mothers who waited

I'm following the GeneaBloggers writing prompt for the month of May with short posts now and again on the topic of Military Memories, from Jennifer Holik. Must admit that I'm enjoying it and thinking about my own impressions of the time in history just before I was born at the start of the Baby Boom. Mom and I have talked a lot about the war years and I never tire of hearing her stories and descriptions of people and places. This time we are interested in women and their role in war, or at least as it was for Mom and Dad's families. The place is that small mountain town in Western Maryland called Frostburg.

Just to drive around Frostburg during the war years, assuming that you had a car and enough gas coupons which were both all but impossible to get because of rationing, and you'd notice the stars in windows indicating how many young people in the family were serving their country. Grandma Kelly had two stars in her window, one for Bernie and the other for Delbert.

Here are the Kelly women in the backyard posing before the boys went off to WWII. Grandma Kelly is second from the left and in no mood to smile.

Dad with Delbert on the left and Bernie on the right.

Grandma Kelly had three sons and three daughters and two of her three sons were going to war. Now I know Grandma and that top photo tells the story. She was real worried. Who wouldn't be? And I think that for the women at home in Frostburg the big burden was worry, just plain boldfaced worry. Would she ever see her two boys again?

My Mom was a young newlywed and happy because Dad was exempt from service due to an old injury. I'm kind of thinking that the fullness of fresh love drove out the ghosts that haunted Grandma Kelly and Grandmother Williams' dreams. And Mom's son wasn't born yet.

So what did the women contribute during the war? There will be stories posted to blogs that feature WACs of the US Army and WAVES of the US Navy, and the SPARS of the Coast Guard. And stories about women's sacrifices at home. But my thought today is of the mothers who waited.

Let me tell you a little story. One day I was at Grandma Kelly's house on West Main Street, and we came in from enjoying one of our favorite activities, sitting on the front porch swing watching traffic go by and waving to neighbors. On the left wall of the front hall was a beautiful fan from Asia displayed in a glass case. It was, and still is, the most lovely and ornately decorated fan I've ever seen. It held a sort of magic for me and I always paused to enjoy it. One day Grandma was talking about what I could have when she was gone. Now you had to know Grandma to understand how deeply she loved talking about a maudlin topic such as who would get what after she died or how so-and-so died. She had seen me admire the fan and warned me that Delbert would get that after she was gone. Delbert had given it to her.

Now that I think about this it all makes sense. Delbert had served in Europe in WWII and then served in Korea. Uncle Delbert told me how much he enjoyed that time in his life and entertained me well with stories about it. A young boy who came for food daily, a painting village people gave him, and each story filled with love and compassion for the Korean people in their war torn country. Of course he would bring his mother a treasure from a place he loved. I can imagine Delbert giving the fan to her when he got back from Korea. They laughed, they cried, Grandma loved it! The shadow of the heartache of having sons in the war was lifted. Her boys were back.

Oh, it was a beautiful fan and when Grandma Kelly passed on, Delbert came and took it. I remember noticing the place where it had been now marked by a bright spot on a field of floral wallpaper. Just like Grandma, my bright spot missing.

I think my cousin Kevin has the fan now, probably on a wall in his living room, given a place of honor. At least I hope so and that, as so many family treasures are, it's not in the attic catching dust.

Grandma surely wasn't alone in worrying about her boys. The mothers of Frostburg all bore the burden of that heartache. Mothers everywhere did. They waited and they worried.


If you'd like some idea of how beautiful that fan is, just click here. Pick the most elaborate then imagine it completely covered in landscape drawings. Now look at the price. Cousin Kevin, is a visit to Antiques Roadshow in your future?

Beautiful fans at: http://www.antiquealive.com/masters/Hand_Fans/Decorative_Folding_Fans.html

The URL for this post is:
http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/05/military-memories-women-in-war-mothers.html

Military Memories: The Community

I'm home from the hospital and on the mend -- see "Sad Sushi" post -- and although the rehab exercises and all the rest wear me out, somehow the highlight of my day is the sweet escape that comes when I take a break and think about genealogy. How many of us love it and in times of trouble find that it can be very soothing to whatever ails us?

So the thought now is to pick up the GeneaBloggers writing prompt for this merry month of May with short posts on Military Memories and thought up by Jennifer Holik. There's a blogging theme for every day and that's going to work for me... and maybe you too, if you blog?

Meanwhile the work continues on the Farrell DNA project and I'll probably be posting on that as well. Cousin Rich and I are busy comparing DNA matches that are the result of Mom's recent AncestryDNA test. I have made some really nice contact with matches for the Farrells as well as for Mom's wonderful Whetstones, a House descendant, and now a Kobel cousin with a branch that spells it Coble. Who knew?

For this short post on Military Memories the topic is The Community. My family all lived in the little Western Maryland mountain town of Frostburg in Allegany County. When WWII broke out, the boys enlisted and went off to war. I did a post about the Kelly boys, Dad's brothers, going off and you can read it here. Dad wasn't eligible due to a childhood injury and he stayed at the home front.

There was rationing and everyone of my age has heard stories about the scarcity of tires, cars, and sugar as well as the use of Ration Books and coupons. I guess that I'm lucky to have all of Mom's stories about the war years in Frostburg and the munitions plant where everyone, including Dad, worked. The local movie theatre had bond sales before the main feature. No new pots and pans nor new sheets for the newlyweds. There was a housing shortage too and rentals were all but impossible to find. One of my all time favorite movies about this era is "Since You Went Away" made in 1944 and every time I see it I think that it could have taken place in Frostburg, with some minor adjustments.

Mom and some of her friends worked during the war. Before the war she found it difficult to get a job and through the help of a friend worked in the Five & Dime. It didn't last long, and my impression is that she wasn't too serious about it either. But when the war started it was much easier for women to find work, good work. And they found fellowship there too, sharing the good and bad.

I think Mom found the work at the textile mill where fabric for parachutes was manufactured a bit more challenging than the work at the Five & Dime. It contributed to the war effort. I might not have this absolutely right (and Mom will let me know) but the guys who were her bosses thought she was just another dumb blond and often made sport of her work efforts. On her own she organized a way to record measurements (or something to do with numbers) and it blew them away. "YOU did this?!" they asked her in disbelief. Sure she did. She'd just never been challenged before. I guess that probably happened to a lot of women who worked at interesting jobs during the war and were good at it and enjoyed it too. I think that it must have given Mom a sense of "can do" that stuck with her and was put to good use when she took up genealogy in the 1970s.

Everyone in town had a Victory Garden. Everyone always had a back yard garden for vegetables, fruits, and wine grapes anyway so to continue it into wartime just made easy sense. Putting up or canning vegetables and meat they hunted was very common. Jams and jellies too. But doing without sugar was a real hardship. And watch out if you ask Mom what she thinks about margarine. Can't stand it to this day!

Little Frostburg had just been through the Great Depression and before that, reversals at the many coal mines in the area. The townsfolk were naturals at economizing and doing without and then finding clever ways to substitute.

A postcard sent to Dad from one of his brothers.

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/05/military-memories-community.html

Amanuensis Monday: Uncle Camey Writes Home

Amanuensis Monday

What's an Amanuensis, you say? It's a copyist: someone who sits like a crazy person squinting their eyes and probably ruining eyesight to read that old document hand-written so very long ago and type it out. We do because we love:)

It's World War II and Grandma Kelly's boys are ready to go do their duty. They gather with the family before everyone goes off, and take photos so that they can all remember the last time they were together. Everyone puts on brave faces but you can tell, the women in the family look worried but mostly smile hard. So do the Old Folks.

On the Williams side, Mom's family, was doing much the same thing. Once the boys were off for training camps the letters started coming back home. Dad had some medical issues that kept him out of the draft. Later he had a war job in a munitions plant so he was really out of the action. But the brothers and brothers-in-law didn't yet know that so they wrote to the only man their age back home. Mom has a treasure trove of letters from this time.

Here's a letter from Mom's brother Camey who was training in Riverside County, California, at Camp Haan, and not too far from where I now live.

Camp Haan CA

SAND HOG

Desert RAT (ME)

Friday Sept 3

Hi Folks,

Well I received your letter today and was glad to hear from you. Glad Ginny is getting along good. Not much news here. I leave for Camp again tomorrow for a period of two weeks and then come back out here again for anywhere from 8 weeks on up. This time has only been for 3 weeks, boy the next time it will drive me nuts I guess. I like it here though its hot. I want to hear about Pat soon as he gets examined and when he leaves for the Army.

If I was to have it over again I would take the Navy. I could make something. Lot more chances than the Army. I know you would make good anywhere though. I may as well have two Lieut.’s as brother in laws than only one. Petie’s Cousin is out here, he’s (???)in an office also and she wrote for me to come see thou I know him well. Well I must close now. I’m busy packing, I write late.

Lots of luck,

Camey

Uncle Camey in Uniform, location unknown.

A souvenir scarf sent to Mom by her brother, Camey Williams from Camp Haan, CA.

He made it home! 

 

 

Here's a video of a Jack Benny broadcast from Camp Haan in 1942! How cool is this?

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqUjciB0Q80 

 



Ananuesis Monday is a weekly blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. You can find the whole week's list of prompts here. Thanks, GeneaBloggers for being you!!

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/02/amanuensis-monday.html

WWII: Uncle Bernie Lands at Omaha Beach

So here's the deal: Uncle Bernie and his sibs didn't learn how to swim as kids. They grew up during the Great Depression and there wasn't much time for that sort of thing. Dad used to sneak off to a watering hole and taught himself to swim, but Bernie missed out somehow. There was a community pool but it cost money to get in or something like that so, well, just know that he never learned to swim as a kid.

When WWII broke out Uncle Bernie joined up. Went to Fort Bragg for basic training where Mom and Dad took the train to see him. It was hot and standing room all the way there, Mom said recently. But they saw him even though there wasn't a proper sleeping room to be had in the whole town... so they stayed in someones house on a dirty old bed. Gross!

Off Bernie went and as it turned out, he was one of the troops who landed at Omaha Beach. You can read all about Omaha Beach at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach

From WIKIPEDIA

Now you might be ahead of me here in the telling of this story, especially if you've served. He was loaded down with his pack and arms... and couldn't swim!! Sunk like a stone. So as human instinct would dictate, he threw off his pack and arms, thrashing about in the too deep water. His CO yelled, Bernie responded, and they all stormed the beach. The rest as they say is history.

Just for fun, click on the photo of the storming of Omaha Beach above and just look at how much gear the boys were carrying! At least the guys in the photo were in shallow water!! (And I do realize that this is probably the only way in which the storming of Omaha Beach could possibly or remotely be seen as fun.)

Photo from the Archive:

Uncle Bernie, 1942
Fort Bragg.

Cousin Cynthia posted this to facebook about Uncle Bernie and Omaha Beach: He never wanted to talk about it, but he did say that when he jumped off the boat with the other soldiers, he had to swim underwater to the shore to survive. He threw off his gun and the cptain told him to go back to get it. First time he ever disobeyed orders. He said there were plenty of guns on the shore to use.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/wwii-uncle-bernie-lands-at-omaha-beach.html

Those Who Don't See The Value

Was on facebook this morning and saw a heartbreaking series of posts from people who found old letters in a dumpster. One batch was rescued and the sister of the dumpster diver was going to make some collage art out of them. I was about to post a suggestion that she try to find a home for them with a living relative, but then thought that it was perhaps a living relative that did the dumping.

One fb friend of the poster wrote: "I have lots of photos of people who were friends with my mom when she was young (30's & 40's). Some have names on the backs and others don't. What do you do with these kind of pictures. I just want to toss them, too."

Guess I am particularly touched at this time because I've been looking at Mom's saved letters from WWII. A real treasure and giving the entire family pleasure and insight into the lives of our family during the war years.

Below is a photo from facebook of the dumpster dive letters. Here's what the poster wrote: "More treasure from my dumpster diving brother. An entire grocery bag filled with old letters between a couple name Everette and Grace- spanning the late 1800s through the 1950s. So sad that this was tossed in the trash. I hope to pay them some small honor by using these things in my work."

What, if anything, do I say to help them see the value?

Off to War! Letters From Camp: Don't Show This to Mom

So here we are taking a look in Mom's archives (closet) at some letters written by the brothers during WWII. Reading through them, the first thing that struck me is that while the boys enthusiastically signed up, the first letters back bemoaned the rigors of camp life and training.

It must have been a shock to go from a relatively cushy life of making your own decisions about where and when you did everything to being given orders about every detail of your life. But the brothers acclimated fast and even came to like the life.

Below is a letter from my Uncle "John" (not his name, see post below) who complained most bitterly at first then went on to stay in the Army after the war. Notice near the end of the letter, after all the grumbling, he says, "I've learned to enjoy this life". So see, already he's getting accustomed to Army life and enjoying it a bit! Buy, hey, who likes to go on duty at 1AM when just 6 months earlier you were out partying?!!

And the language is a tad salty so you'll see lots of ** where the offending words are;) Hey, it was war. The reference to "death warrant" refers to Dad's notice to go for a thorough physical. See post below about Dad's hands.

HOTEL SHERMAN SQUARE: New York, no date:

Don't show this to Mom
Hello lug,
Say, Pat, I hear you just received your "death warrant". Well listen, buddy, you have every reason in the world to stay out of this damn place and by Jesus you'd better do just that. You hear this line of s*** that the army makes you a man -- well, ol' buddy, I've been in here six months, and outside of gaining a few pounds, this damn place ruins a guy.
I have talked myself into trying to like this life, but, Pat, it is no good. There is nothing here for anybody, and especially for a person like you - so stay the hell out of here.
A person has to take too damn much s***, which I know you could never do, so ol' buddy so if they do happen to call you up for a physical, you have all the damn physical defects in the books. The hell with those guys. Pat, as I said before, I've learned to enjoy this life, but, boy, you'd never go for it - so stay out.
This is kinda funny - me telling you what to do - I guess, in fact I know, you'll take care of yourself, but I wanted to drop you a line anyway, so I just used this as an excuse. Well, buddy, I'm going to grab a few hours sleep before I go on duty at 1:00 tonite. Take care of everything, and I'll probably see you at Xmas.

Dad didn't go to war because of his physical challenge but he did work at a munitoins factory. Here he is at work at ABL in Western Maryland.