Reece (RE) interviewed Howard (HPK) and Thelma (TTK) for a class project on World War II, along with his father Waverly Evans (WE). This transcript was produced from that interview by Mark with some light editing for clarity.
HPK: Enlisted.
HPK: Well I was in college at the time and everybody else’s was joining, but in college I was ROTC so I was really already part of the Army.
HPK: I remember leaving home from Bloomfield New Jersey. I really can’t remember how I got from Bloomfield New Jersey to Camp Dix New Jersey but I did. It seems I remember a friends’ father came and picked me up and took us to the collection point. I don’t know if it was in Greenville or in Newark; and I don’t know whether we went by bus or by train, but later that day I was at camp Dix New Jersey with a bunch of other fellows just as bewildered as we were.
We were put into a barracks, given a bunk to sleep on, and whenever we went any place, we marched to where we went. There was a big ol’ sergeant, gruff old fellow, who was in charge of us, and got us from place to place.
During indoctrination, we lined up when we came into this building. We were single file, stripped to our waist, and the end of the file there are two medical men, one on each side of the file with syringes in their hands and they were giving us shots, of course they changed needles between each soldier.
I must have been 10 or 15 people down the line when I noticed fellow on the right was looking at me, and he motioned at his buddy across the way and pointed towards me. “What the world is the matter with me? I got my shirt off and I’m just like everybody else.” But when I got down the line before getting my shots, he says “will you step out over here?”, so I stepped out of line over where he was. They emptied their syringes, and said “fellow don’t you know you’ve got German measles?” And I said “German measles? Well I don’t know!” He says, “Yeah we got to pull you out.”
So, they call for transportation and sent me back to the company area that I came from, to the clinic/first aid station in my company area. I got back, and they reaffirmed the fact that I did have German measles. They called for more transportation, and they put me in an ambulance, and sent me to the hospital at Fort Dix.
Well, the ambulance picked up several people in route so I was not alone, I think there were four of us. When we got to the hospital, they told me I had a disease I could transmit. “So you go in that back room, these fellows stay out here in front.” Well I went in back and sat on the bench, and waited. The fellows in the front room got called out and disappeared, and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting. “Gosh, it’s getting late – they’ve forgotten me!” I think. So, I’m sitting on this bench and I was rocking back-and-forth, sort of knocking my head against the wall – it was a wooden wall – well, that caught somebody’s attention. They came in and got me, and said “oh yeah we got to take care of you.” They, sure enough, eventually got me to a ward, but I missed my supper. But the nurse finally found me a sandwich, so I did to get something to eat anyway.
Well, my measles started (to be) more than measles, I maintained a temperature and they wouldn’t let me out of the hospital till I got rid of the temperature. But while I’m in the hospital, all the other fellas moved on. So, when I got back to the company area, all my buddies who I and reported with were gone.
But the new group came in, and I was number one in that group. So, I went back through the procedures and got classified. From Fort Dix New Jersey, I was sent to Fort Bragg North Carolina to train for basic training in artillery in 105mm cannon.
At Fort Bragg, the company that I was with went through all sorts of calisthenics and whatever. I know we were on the parade grounds, practicing for marching. You can see this other group that was marching, and in this group, there was one fellow who kept popping up. He was out of step with everybody else, and kept popping up. He was in step, but nobody else was. I later learned that … he was sent home, so there was one who got through the system with not being physically able to be in the military.
Then also, one night after supper, we were having some training sitting on the steps of the barracks. It was a lieutenant giving us a lesson, I don’t know what it was in, whether it was map-reading or something. He asked this one soldier … I think we’d been given something to read in the meantime. So from this reading the lieutenant asked this other soldier something, asking a question. And the man said, “I don’t know.” And the lieutenant asked him, “Did you read the material?” and the man answered “I can’t read.”
The lieutenant was just abashed that the soldier could not read. So he took his helmet off, the name across the front was helmet was “Lord.” He says, “tell me what this says,” and he says “Sir, I can’t read.” He was out. Another man who was not physically able to be in service. So there was two men we lost somehow or another.
So, we went through our training, and eventually towards the end of the training, it was announced that there was a program, we could go back to school and that we can study psychology, language, or engineering. Well, I decided that I’d like to try that, I’d go back to school. I was transferred from Fort Bragg North Carolina to Clemson College South Carolina. The psychology and language schools filled up first, so I was left to take engineering. So, I was classified to go to school in a pre-engineering.
Later, we were those who were going to engineering were gathered up, and we were put on a transportation again. I'm not sure whether we were bussed or trained from South Carolina to Brooklyn New York. In Brooklyn New York, there was a new housing development on Flatbush Avenue. These were high-rise apartment buildings – there were four of them sort of in a square. I ended up on upper floor, I don’t know whether the sixth, seventh, or eighth floor. In this apartment, I ended up in a room with a double bunk with another fellow. I think there either seven or eight of us in that one apartment. That apartment was about a mile from Pratt Institute which is the school we were going to go to.
In the morning, they would call us out and put us in formation, and we would march up Flatbush Avenue to go to the school. While marching together, the soldiers would count the cadence or sing the cadence and what have you, going to Flatbush Avenue. We were just gay as we could be, singing whatever the marching song could be. But it didn’t last very long, because at 7 o’clock in the morning a lot of citizens were still in town, were just getting off the night shift, and wanted to go to sleep. So, word came down that no more singing in rank.
Flatbush Avenue also had an elevated railroad train. There was a station right near where the apartments were, and there was steps up to the station. The boys in the back rank, near the end as we were marching, saw an advantage. They would slip off, go up the steps, catch the train, go up, and get off at the school.
Well, whether the sergeant could see this or not, the company commander was real smart guy, and took advantage of situations. We couldn’t march and sing, but if the soldiers wanted to take the train to school, that was alright by him. So, he made the rule, “all right gentlemen, there will be a formation, but when formation is over, the next thing is, you show up in class on your own.”
So we were free to walk up to school, take the train to school. My friend and I who shared the room together, we liked to walk, so we generally walked most of the time. This was the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) that Thelma talked about people coming back to her school. Of course, I had left Cornell, and Cornell entertained a lot Navy Specialized Training Programs.
Well, the program didn’t last forever, and it eventually closed out. It was time to be moved on again, so we went from Pratt Institute to one of the train stations in New York. I don’t remember it was Grand Central or Pennsylvania Station, where we were loaded onto a troop train.
A troop train was made up of Pullman cars or special cars that were made for the Army, like Pullman cars. In the length of this train, I don’t know how many cars long it was, but in the middle of the train was the baggage car that has been transformed in a kitchen car.
As we left the station and went off, we started going, and we were headed west. Nobody knew we were going, and we all conjectured: “Are going to stop off in Colorado? Are going on to California? Where are we going?”
At meal time, they would get up everybody at one end of the train, and march them back through the kitchen car, all way back to the other end of the train until everybody was through. Then you’d stop, turn around, come back through the kitchen car and be served your meal, and go back to your bunk or seat to eat your meal. While we were doing that, the people from the other end of the train came back up through our end of the train, stopped, turned around and went back to the kitchen to get their meal.
I guess it was a day or two out, we ended up, at night, in Chicago stockyards – mooing of cows and a little odor too. But as far we knew, we were still going west. But when we got going again, we soon we realized we weren’t going west anymore, we were going south. So where to now? Well, we ended up in Camp Polk Louisiana, and at Camp Polk Louisiana we were unloaded, ushered into our barracks.
Very early the next morning, we were roused up for breakfast and sent through a receiving line to receive field equipment. Up to this point, all we had was our clothing. We received a gas mask, a shelter half tent, a knapsack and anything else for field service. We found that we were being attached to the 75th Division.
The 75th Division was on maneuvers in Louisiana, between Louisiana and Texas. I was taking my basic training in artillery, so they assigned me to a cannon company, it was a cannon company of the 209th regiment of the 75th Division. That was my unit for the practically the rest of my time in service. We endured the maneuvers, and finally the maneuvers were over and we were entrained again. We traveled north and ended up at Camp Breckenridge Kentucky.
Camp Breckenridge Kentucky was a little south of Indianapolis Indiana. I can’t remember the name of the small town we were near, but I know on leave time my buddy and I would go into town for weekend leave. We would go to a church, and we would get ourselves into the choir, because the girls are in the choir. And usually being in the choir, you also got invited to go to lunch and go to a meal with some family members the church. I got to go with apparently a very poor family because the china was chipped and unmatched. I know that they really had to put out to use their ration card to be able to provide a meal for two or three soldiers.
While we were at Camp Breckenridge, my friend from the ASTP program was in one platoon; I was in another platoon. We ended up one day on detail in the kitchen and mess hall cleaning windows. The tables in the mess hall were like picnic tables with the attached benches. We were sitting on the table with our feet on the benches, and we were washing the window right next to us. While we were there, somebody came over to told the mess sergeant that two of his cook’s helpers were going to be transferred to another company, to another unit. We knew the mess sergeant was going to be short two men. I don’t know why, Bill and I, our minds were running together, because we thought being in the kitchen might be a little easier than being a cannon hopper. (1:57) That is running around a cannon and shoving a cannon around.
We got down off the bench, went back to the kitchen when the sergeant came, and said “you just lost two men; would you like two more? We will volunteer for it.” So he says, “I’ll see what I can do.” He took off to the orderly room, and soon he was back, it didn’t take very long. He says “OK, you’re cooks helpers now.” This was before we went overseas.
(2:29) We moved from our platoon’s quarters into the cooks’ rooms, which were rooms at one end of the barracks. We joined a Sergeant Brown, who was one cook, and there was a fellow by the name of Goodman, who was a little Jewish boy from New York. So, Bill and I got interested in food preparation. We got a baking manual, and we got to work doing sweet rolls among other things. From time to time we got sent to school, one school I went to was for dehydrated foods (3:26). Eggs were dehydrated, potatoes were dehydrated, I don’t know what other foods were dehydrated. The school tried to give us some insight in to how to prepare these foods the best way. It was a challenge to try to get the eggs to taste somewhat acceptable. We would add bacon grease to it; we would add cheese to it; and I don’t know what all. But we worked hard to try to make those eggs acceptable to the troops. And we learned that the potatoes really had to be put in enough water to reconstitute, and they would come out reasonably acceptable. (4:13) I think there was some other cooks’ schools that I was able to go to at that time.
Eventually we had served our time at Breckenridge, and time for another move. We again got put on a train again, and we went from Breckenridge Kentucky to Camp Shanks New York. From Camp Shanks, we went down to New York harbor and boarded the SS Brazil (4:44); was an ex-banana boat. When everything was all loaded up, we left NY harbor, and joined a large convoy of boats headed to England. The SS Brazil was one of the slower boats, so it was at the back end of the convoy. We could look ahead and see all these other ships ahead of us. You’d see these destroyers running up and down the outside of the convoy, protecting us from submarines. We occasionally had a submarine drill where you had to go to certain spots. Well, we made it across with no problems (5:51).
We landed in Porthcawl Wales, and the cannon company kitchen ended up in a resort hotel kitchen. We had this resort hotel kitchen equipment which was quite strange to us, but we learned how to use it. It was almost like going back to the country.
Going back a bit, our stoves at Breckenridge were coal stoves, and we had to learn how to heat those up, and how to make the best out of those. They had to be cleaned out every night; you had to break the suet in the back down, and into the ash bin. You dumped your ashes out in a trash can in the back of the dining hall (6:51).
Some of this equipment in England was coal fired also. Well, eventually we’d been there long enough, we were due for another change. We moved from Porthcawl to a port in south England and boarded another ship there. We went across the channel to Le Havre France. This was well after the D-Day invasion of France, of course. The boats were able to go right up to docks, and we were unloaded from the ships right onto a dock and up onto land. We moved into a bivouac area in the coastal area of France for just one night and then next thing we know we on our way again. This time it was by our own vehicles; we ended up in the area which has long since been called “The Bulge.”
(repeats till 0:43) The kitchen was always a part of what was referred to as the regimental train. All the cooks of the various companies of the regiment would end up in an area of the regimental train. The supply units and other service units were in that area also. We would pitch a tent fly, which was a large canvas which had two tall poles that you put at each end and elevated the fly. It tapered off to each side to lesser poles five or six feet high and roped those down and tagged them down, so it was like a tent but without any sides. That was alright at the time because the temperatures were such that it wasn’t too bad. But later on, our kitchen would be a pyramidal tent, if we did use a tent.
Many times, our kitchen would take over a building of some sort. One that I remember the most, it was at a farm house that had been destroyed, it had been bombed out. But there was a building that had been the workshop for the farm, sort of like a garage in a way We didn’t have to use our tent, that was our kitchen there. We would prepare our meals in our kitchen area, and then we would put the food in large thermos containers called mermite cans. We load them on our truck, take it out to the area where the gun emplacement was, and the troops would come by and be feed., breakfast was always before dawn and supper was really after sundown. In other words, we always traveled in the dark to avoid being seen.
(3:23) I’m trying to remember; I felt sick one day, I was feeling nauseated, rather weak and fumbling around. They finally took me to the medical clinic/infirmary, took me in a jeep and took me from the company to the clinic. They couldn’t tell what was wrong with me at the time, so they sent me back. They said that if you don’t get any better, we’ll come back. Well, I ended up going back. I ended up in a field hospital getting my appendix out. At that time, appendicitis required a one month stay in the hospital so I was in the hospital a month, away from the unit. (4:28)
When I finished my tour in the hospital, they put me in a replacement depot where I was supposed to go back to my company. Well, the replacement depot took a long while to notify my company that I was available again, and I was in replacement depot for about a month. While I was in the replacement depot, the war in Europe came to an end, but I did get back to the company.
After “The Bulge”, we were in a place called Soye Belgium. From Soye Belgium, we moved to another part of France called Colmar which is down in the southeastern part of France near the Swiss Alps. It was there we were under bombardment. The kitchen had been in this workshop of a farmyard, but they decided to move us up, and we put the kitchen tent up right behind the gun emplacements where the guns were situated. We prepared meals right there at the gun emplacement so we didn’t have to carry the food out to the troops. But they moved the gun emplacement forward, and then we had to take the meal forward. When we got back from taking that meal out, they told us we’re going to take you back to where you were before. (6:11)
While we were trying to load up the kitchen onto the truck (from) our pyramidal tent, (where) we had a Coleman lantern going on inside. We were trying to keep the front flaps of the tent closed so it wouldn’t show off any light. We apparently weren’t too careful, because pretty soon enemy observation post apparently saw that light and said, “hey that’s where that cannon company was” so they started to shell us. (6:46)
The cannon company was located right in front of a long tom gun – it was a huge gun – they could have been shooting at them too. We were under bombardment for a little while. Our truck driver ran down the length of the old gun emplacement and used a fox hole at the end of the emplacement. He didn’t like that spot very well, so in a lull, he got up and came running back and crawled under his truck between dual rear wheels. We weren’t hit fortunately. My friend/coworker and I jumped into a fox hole that we could fit in, one at each end of it.
By then this fellow Goodman, the cook, had been promoted to mess sergeant (0:09). We had dug a garbage pit, which was a 4x4 hole about 4 feet deep, and discarded some unneeded corn starch. (During bombardment,) Sgt. Goodman ran and jumped into the garbage pit. He hit those boxes of corn starch and he came out all white. So, there was some humor in what went on.
From Colmar, we went back to Holland, (where) our kitchen was in a barn-like building adjacent to a house. At this location, after we were through our detail, we would sit in the parlor with the family. It was very common then a for at night for the enemy to send a spotter plane, we called them “Bed-check Charlie” because it was time to go to bed. This single engine observation plane would fly out over our particular area looking for someone to show a light. We had learned our lesson by then.
In one corner of the barn there was a stack of hay, on top of that stack of hay, there was a box of German hand grenades. They were called “potato mashers” because they had a long handle and the grenade was at the end of this long handle. We didn’t touch – no touch! Left them alone.
When the war finished up, we ended up in Letmathe Germany. With the war over, people starting thinking about going home. We moved near Reims France and set up a depot for processing divisions back to the States. The division would come back to our camp and turn in their field equipment and company equipment. We would collect it and stack it, ready to go home. (3:10)
There was a prisoner of war camp where we had German prisoners; they were brought down to be our KPs. We tried to learn each other’s languages at little bit; I would need some bread sliced. So I would slice some bread and say, “was ist das?” And German prisoner would say, “schneiden der brot”. So I knew when I needed bread sliced, I could tell him “schneiden der brot” and the various other little phrases we learned from them. (3:57)
At first we had a detail of German prisoners, but we didn’t need them all. We determined that wanted four, and decided which four we wanted. We picked out the four that seemed to be the most helpful, the most enjoyable to be with. (4:21)
While there an opportunity came again, the Army set up a school in England, Shrivenham American University. So I signed up to go to that. I was selected and moved from Germany back to England to Shrivenham American University which was a military West Point. I was able take some courses; I took typing, speech, I forget what my third subject was. The speech and typing served me very well when I came back and returned to college when the war was over. (5:18)
To get back after the war was over, to be discharged you had to have so many points. These were determined by the length of time you were in, where you had been, and what battles you’d been in, and various other things. I finally was eligible for that number. (5:45)
From Shrivenham, I went to an English port, and I was boarded on the USS Champlain, an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. The Champlain had made a record crossing of the Atlantic, and all the troops that got on the Champlain wanted the Champlain to make another record crossing so we could get home early. Every day, some soldier would ask – there was a commander’s question and answer thing – and some guy would ask – of course the first time you could understand it, “why aren’t we going faster?” “Why aren’t we going to match the record?” The commander explained this over the intercom that the seas were high and he was getting large swells and he could only go so fast because if the ship should peak on one of those swells – part of the ship be off one end of the swell and the other end off at the other end – his keel could break, and we could all go down. He explained why he couldn’t go any faster. But every day after, that some stupid army man would ask “why can’t we go faster?” And the commander patiently re-answered it every time I think. (7:13)
We finally came into New York harbor and that day the weather was fine. We were able to go up on the flight deck and see all these little boats, fire boats, shooting water into the air, large boats carrying bands playing military songs. We pulled into the pier and eventually disloaded. I think I went back to Camp Shanks for a night and then was transferred back to Fort Dix where I went through discharge. I was offered a chance to stay in the Army (8:00) if I wanted to, but who, just getting out of the war, wants to go back? A few people signed up to stay. So I left Fort Dix, went back home, and it was all over.
As I recall, there were several places where I don’t remember what went on. I don’t remember how we got from point B to point C.
HPK: This is the European theatre of operation medal and the good conduct medal because I was a good boy.
TTK: The cook.
HPK: As a cook, right.
WE: I’m sure everybody wanted to be friends with the cooks.
HPK: Oh yeah.
HPK: There was a thing called e-mail? Was it emails? There were little small . . . You wrote on them and then folded them up into . . . made its own envelope, I know my dad used to type his and send it to me.
While we were at Colmar pocket your mail was censored, because you weren’t supposed to say anything, tell about where you were. Colmar was near Nancy France, so in one of my letters I said “I wonder how Nancy is doing in music school?” but I used the term “Nancy” as a sister. The family, when I got home, “what in the world were you talking about ‘Nancy’?” They didn’t catch on that I was trying to tell them I was at Nancy France.
HPK: Yes, we were very well supplied.
One of the fellows who was in the ASTP with us at Pratt Institute was named John Dickey. On weekends, I would take him home with me to New Jersey. He would tell my mother and Dad how anxious he was . . . on Sunday night you couldn’t get him back to base/school fast enough. He’d say, “I’ve got to pass this, I can’t flunk out, cause I don’t want to go back into . . .” He was a foot soldier; he had fear of going back. Well, of course, we all did go back. One place where our kitchen was serving troops, the troops from his (John Dickey’s) company was pulling back from the line. I asked about him, “How’s John? Where’s John?” I learned then that John had been killed by mortar in his foxhole. John’s premonition did come true. So, a good friend did get lost. (3:54)
HPK: No. Just kept my nose clean. Did my duty, did the best I could, always tried to do better.
While I was in the hospital, my partner, who I went into the kitchen with, got promoted. I wasn’t there to be available for it; I didn’t get promoted at that time. But he was my buddy so I was glad for him.
HPK: How did we entertain ourselves? Well I don’t . . .
TTK: Did you have any sort of equipment?
HPK: No.
HPK: No, can’t say that I did. I guess the nearest thing to a prank I tried to pull was that I tried to grow whiskers. But they always got to be so uncomfortable that I’d shave them off before they got very far.
HPK: Yes, got out of the Army and went right back to school. As your dad (Waverly Evans) was talking about earlier, I was originally in Cornell class of 1945, but I got out of the service in 1945. I went back to school and my new class was 1947. So, I was detained two years, was all – two years didn’t make that much difference. When I went back to school, I went back with a little more intent.
HPK: Well there was my one buddy basically, and then my friend that’s gone, John Dickey. Not too many. There was a fellow that shared our apartment, and at this moment I can’t really recall his name, he was always declaring the glory of Springfield Massachusetts, which was his home. So one time, Thelma and I were coming back from Maine, we came through Springfield, and I made a little effort to try to find him, but didn’t have any success.
TTK: Now, you kept in touch with Richards from Chattanooga.
HPK: Well, I kept in touch . . .
TTK: And the guy from Pennsylvania that had the car dealership
HPK: Oh yeah, there were two or three … a fellow by the name of Bridges, he was the armorer, he was the fellow who looked after our weapons, our rifles. Moody was the jeep driver for the company commander. His father had a dealership in Pittsburgh and we kept in touch after the war for a while. Bill Kine was from Pennsylvania.
TTK: West Virginia was where he ended up. Wasn’t Bill from West Virginia?
HPK: We stopped to see him. He was a florist and his son took over his business. So at Easter and Valentine’s he was always very busy with his florist shop.
No, not really. Because after college, after I graduated I was working in Nashville TN. I was in Nashville and didn’t have any friends in particular. I thought, well, maybe a way to get acquaintances and friends would be to join the Army Reserve. But I didn’t take any action immediately until I met and dated Thelma for a while and we got married and we had moved into a little house in a subdivision. A next door neighbor came over and enquired about my military experiences and what have you, and he says “why don’t you come with me and join the Reserve?” And I thought I had been thinking about it, but I’ll check and see. Thelma was in agreement that I do that. This was right after the start of the Korean War and my thought there was …
TTK: Your first meeting was the day after the war was declared.
HPK: My thought there was I really don’t want to go back into service as an individual, and just take pot luck as to what assignment you might get. If I joined the Reserve and joined, I will be going in with (this unit) in a position predetermined and I will have friends to go with. So, with Thelma’s approval, I did join the Reserve.
There was a position in this Reserve unit for a food service master sergeant, so I got a quick promotion from private to sergeant. When I first joined, going to summer camp was sort of “iffy” and you didn’t have to go all the time. Well, they started clamping down and we did have to take in our summer camps. I would go to summer camp and be away from home for two weeks. Your meetings were one night a week; that changed to where they went to weekends. And it changed to once a month, all week-end.
The table of organization and equipment changed that master sergeant’s job to that of a warrant officer. The military advisor of the unit handed me a bunch of papers, and said “fill all these out” and we’ll see if we can’t get you a position as a warrant officer. Well, I did, I filled out all the papers and what have you, and turned them in, and I was approved to be a warrant officer. So, I went from sergeant to warrant officer.
While I was in that position, the military advisor said “you don’t want to be a warrant officer all your life. Why don’t you apply for a commission?” and I said “well, … I don’t know if I can make it or not.” So, I applied for a commission. I was too old to go in as a second lieutenant, so I got a commission as a first lieutenant, with a proviso that I take correspondence courses in a certain level. From then on, I couldn’t get away from correspondence courses. Every promotion required so many correspondence courses. From first lieutenant, I got to be a major, and from major, I soon got to be a lieutenant colonel. I came out of the Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. I was lucky, I was in the right places at the right time and it worked out to my best advantage, and we enjoy it today.
HPK: A little short of two plus years. I went in 42 and came out in 45 but it was not three years. But with Reserves, I ended up with just short of 30, it was 29 and so many months and so many days. In other words, at that point I could not do 30 years. I was not permitted to go 30 years.
HPK: Oh……
Well….
I guess in that end I would have to say it was financially to my advantage.
HPK: At Cornell, I was studying Hotel Management.
HPK: The ROTC at Cornell was artillery. They had the old 75mm French cannons and they were converting over to the 105mm cannons. At Cornell, the 75mm cannons were horse-drawn so in my second semester I had the opportunity to go to motorized or horse-drawn, and I wanted to learn to ride a horse, …
TTK: (laughter)
HPK: … so I chose horse-drawn. I did learn how to ride horses, but of course they were all phased out. Total mechanized was the thing to do.
HPK: Director of Dining Services.
HPK: Right.
HPK: I was born in New Jersey in Orange Memorial Hospital. But my home was actually in Bloomfield. In Bloomfield, I first went to Watsessing Elementary School which was about four blocks away from where I lived. So it was a walking school. When I went to high school, it was Bloomfield High. That was probably a mile from home and I walked to school every day.
At an early age, somewhere along the line, I became a peddler for magazines. I distributed Collier’s magazine which was a weekly, Woman’s Home Companion which was monthly, and The American Magazine which was monthly. I had to go out and sell these. I had to call on people, talk them into buying the magazine. Then each week I’d get my group of Collier’s, put them on my bicycle, and take my bicycle and deliver the magazines to the various homes. When the monthly magazines came out, I had to go around to the customers for those. I had a pretty strong route and it was spread all over the place, was not concentrated at all.
At the bottom (of the hill), at the corner down from us where I lived, there was a group of stores at the corner. One of them was a produce market, dealing strictly in oranges, potatoes and grapefruit, produce; I went to work for this old gentleman on weekdays. Ladies would come down from the various housing sections around this area. They would buy their produce and ask to have it delivered. Well, I was the delivery boy. So, with my bicycle I would take these … baskets full of produce that the ladies had purchased, pedal it up to their houses, and deliver it to them.
Then on the weekend, I went up to the center of town to what was one of the earliest self-service grocery stores where you walked through and picked out yourself and came by a cashier and checked out. This was a mom and pop operation. I stocked shelves there. At that time, we had to mark every can or carton with a price. Grease pencil is what I’m trying to say. That was a dawn-to-dark job, I mean I was there early in the morning, stayed late almost closing time 8 or 9 o’clock at night. So, I was a working boy.
HPK: In public school there was eight grades at Watsessing, or was it seven and an half? There was a school across from the high school which I think was the eighth grade that we went to before we went to high school. High school was nine to twelve. The high school had a pretty good football team and I can remember one of the prime players for Bloomfield High was Mike DeSonly (sp?) he was big fellow.
TTK: I’m Thelma king
TTK: My maiden name is Thomas.
TTK: Ninety one, almost ninety two.
TTK: I was born and reared in western Kentucky, the county was Trigg County, the county seat was Cadiz.
TTK: I grew up in a large family. There were three generations that lived in an old house that was built before the Civil War. Probably around 1840. We had to make our own entertainment, we didn’t have a lot of toys or what have you. (It was) a rural area and you didn’t have to tell your parents where you were going. We were free to wander around the neighborhood. There was a creek nearby; we weren’t allowed to go to the creek without adult supervision. There were deep holes of water, but it was a fun spot to go swimming.
Would you like to know some of the things we did to entertain ourselves?
Well, the girls liked to make mud pies. Create housekeeping, we’d get broken chips of paint and rocks and things, and create living rooms and what have you. There was also an old log cabin that at one point had been a kitchen that we used as our extra playhouse. Broken cast off furniture, anything that was cast off, we’d clean it out every so often, it would become our special playhouse. For swings, we had fun swings, some of them were tire swings where you put a rope or chain over a limb and use a tire. See-saws, we had fences around the place we’d put a plank through a fence and make our own see-saw.
There was a hill up back of the house we improvised and we made sleds and make a slide that would go down the hill. We would work with it long enough that we could get started at the top of the hill and go down the hill on the plank we’d improvised.
TTK: No, during the war I was in college.
TTK: I was in Nashville Tennessee; all during the war years. I went to business school and worked in a small coal company as a jack of all trades, bookkeeper, secretary, whatever. After that I met a lady who had a private school, and I went to work for her. From there I went to college; went to Peabody which is now part of Vanderbilt.
TTK: Right.
TTK: It was just a general business course. You had bookkeeping you had typing you had shorthand it was just general business course.
TTK: Well, I was in school. I worked at this private school. The children were four, five years old, plus first grade. She had a first grade there; I did not work with the first graders I worked wherever I was needed.
TTK: Oh! Gosh! Movies were the big thing that we went to; there wasn’t a lot to do. The private school that I worked for, the family lived there. He could ride the bus to his work so he could save up his gas coupons. We could take short rides, around the city, or out of the city for a short time. And it was a time of rationing.
TTK: I guess my goal was to get a degree, so I didn’t think much about whether I liked or disliked. I liked children so I had a good experience.
TTK: You were restricted. I could remember when I would go home, I had to ride public transportation because not many people had cars or what have you. I really don’t think it changed much of my habits because my habits during that period were more or less controlled by my working at the school and my job. I was very involved in part-time work and going to school.
And you did a lot of walking to places even in the city. Of course you had the public transportation too.
TTK: The day we heard the war was over. Because I had three brothers in service and it was just such a relief. I had not met my husband at that point.
TTK: No, in the city. When I grew up out in the country, my family still living in the country. They have always had wonderful gardens and they preserved the foods that came from the gardens.
TTK: I think the lady who had the school, she was allowed a certain allotment that maybe a family wasn’t allowed. I think we sometimes took advantage of that, and used it. Didn’t cheat particularly but did take advantage of it for our own personal use sometimes. But my family did not hoard food, no.
TTK: Well, I was still in school, so I didn’t get a job until after the war was over.
TTK: My family in the rural area, we did not have a car.
TTK: You had a ration book for food. You had a ration book for different foods. You had a ration book for clothes, particularly shoes.
TTK: I think the funny thing is, after the war was over, the women wore dresses to their knees. After the war was over the dresses suddenly dropped, and you were piecing things together and remaking things. You remade a lot of things to bring them up to date. Ladies and their stockings – you could not get silk stockings, and nylon had just come out. And ladies would line up to buy hose.
And to dress up, we had coloring – you know like a lotion that had tan color – to put on your legs. Sometimes back then, seams in back of hose were fashionable, so you had a pencil and you’d draw a line right up the back of your leg so it would look like the seam of a stocking. That was the teenage years. Out of high school, college years.
TTK: Well, they were very patriotic. I had three brothers who went to the war willingly. I think back then, all of our generation was very patriotic.
TTK: It was almost as big a relief as when the war ended because you thought “well, good, there will not be a war with the Japanese.” The whole war was over. Of course we had no idea just how horrible the atom bomb would be, or the repercussions as the years went by.
TTK: I think you’re aware I went to a one-room country school. We walked. We couldn’t wait until the weather would get warm enough so we could take our shoes off and go barefooted all summer long. Usually it was the first of May. As if that was a magic date we could get out of our shoes! If you’ve ever walked on gravel in your bare feet, you know that when you first start, you have to – I don’t know if you tip-toe or what, but after a while your feet get so tough it didn’t even bother you.
We walked to school – we were within walking distance to go to school.
It was a seven-month school. The history of the seven-month school was, in the rural south, it was set up in such a way where the farm people could take advantage of the help, not only of the boys, but also the girls.
The school year was seven months, it ran from July through January. As I recall, the mornings probably started about eight o’clock, but we didn’t get out of the school until four o’clock in the afternoon. The grades went all the way from one through eight. Sometimes you just had to sit; supplies were not very plentiful. It was rather interesting, because the lower grades could listen to upper grades, and found it far more interesting than I’m sure the older kids did.
The heat in the school was just a big old pot belly stove and we had coal that was brought in every year. If you were near the stove, you were warm, but if you were farther back in the room, you were not very warm.
We had a bucket, and the teacher would encourage you to bring your own cup, where you could get a drink of water. Outside plumbing. When I first started school, we got the water from a spring which was quite a ways from the school. When you got old enough, she would send two of you to the spring for a bucket of water. It was a great privilege to get out of school. But she’d time you, so you didn’t have too much time to play around. You could take turn about holding that bucket of water, but it worked better if you had a stick and put through the pail, and had one on one end, and one on the other. I didn’t get to take too many trips to the spring, she mostly sent boys.
In the morning, we had about a 15-minute recess where you were turned loose out of the building; you could run all over the school yard – no supervision. The teacher was available if you needed her. Noon, you had an hour break for lunch, and then in the afternoon you had a break. Sometimes, like when you got cold weather, you might not have a recess, and you’d get out of school a little bit earlier.
Sometimes the teacher would come out and supervise games, but most of time, we made up our own games. If we were lucky, we had a ball and bat. We had to have games we could make up where we had to choose up sides. Sometimes you could just go and do your own thing. In the evening, at the end of December and January, four o’clock (meant it) was really very late when you got home from school.
As far as things we did, there were a lot of nut trees around, hickory nuts and what have you. We liked to get out and roam the fields and look for nuts. There were a couple of varieties of wild grapes. We didn’t gather them to take home, we just did it as part of our fun, roaming around the community. We were free to climb fences, do whatever.
When it came time for Christmas, if you wanted to have a Christmas tree, and not many people did, you were free to go pick out a tree, it didn’t matter whose farm it was on. Usually you’d ask them if you might cut it. Mostly, when Christmas came, you hung your stocking. You didn’t get toys – I grew up in the Depression years and people did not have money. We always managed to have a little red wagon, but not many toys. Maybe a doll or something.
Catalogs came in, there were three different types of catalogs that came in; like the Sears, and the Montgomery Ward, and Spiegel. The girls just loved them, because they could cut them – they were our source of paper dolls. We’d find cardboard and make our own doll house furniture.
In cold weather, we had games we could play inside the house – mostly checkers and that type of thing. Sometime if we were lucky, our father would plant popcorn, and we’d have popcorn, or we could sit around the fire and eat the nuts we had gathered from the fields.
When you look back, you were very pleased and happy about the freedom you had to roam the hills in the springtime; the flowers. That was a great thing to go and check to see what flowers were in bloom and come back with a fistful of wildflowers.
But I couldn’t wait to get away. When I grew up living in the country, I could wait to get away to start my life.
TTK: Mostly home remedies. One of my distant relatives – in fact, they were twin doctors – sometimes you could go see the doctor, but they would make house calls if you were real sick. My grandmother had a lot of remedies I can remember.
You were always in your barefeet roaming around where you’d get a nail in your foot. You were really concerned. My grandmother, in the pioneering days, in that old house they had built, they had an ash hopper, that they saved ashes. She would make boiling water, pour over those ashes, and when that water got (cool) enough where you could bear to put your foot in, you’d put your foot in it. Supposedly that would keep any infection from that nail, and that nail was usually rusty. With all the nails, we never had any infection, so her remedy must have worked.
Ear-aches, we had a lot of ear-aches. They’d find a sock or something and put salt in it and heat it, and you’d put it on to ease the pain. It didn’t do a thing for your ear infection other that ease the pain and make it feel better.
Sometimes they’d have medicines that they’d get at the drug store, and it’d be home remedies, more than herbs or anything like that. You always kept certain things on the shelf, not alcohol, you had turpentine, castor oil, cough syrup.
TTK: Oh yes, as a teenager, they can’t wait to get away, and then they love going back home.