[This is the continuation of a series of posts which began January 15, titled "Daddy and the Big War." This winter family history project is based on letters written by my dad, Vance, to his parents on the farm in Idaho, while he was in boot camp. Vance, 38 years old, is now stationed at Camp White, 13 miles north of Medford, Oregon. In this letter, written December 12, 1942, he mentions the Montgomery family. Aunt Mabel Montgomery is his mother Ina's youngest sister. Mabel's adult children are Grant (married to Ruth), Fay, and Mavis. Grant is now also stationed at Camp White, and Aunt Mabel, Fay, and Ruth, live in Jacksonville, not far from Medford. Having family nearby will hopefully afford Vance the opportunity for diversion and comfortable leaves. Continuing now with the letter of December 12:]
I got your letter yesterday and was most glad to hear from home. The postmark was the 9th and I got it the 11th which was very good. I have not received the package but it will probably be here tomorrow. Packages seem to be slow.
Now for my tale of woe – We have been on [a dead run] for 8 days. I have not had time to write a card before "lights out" at 9 p.m. They have been throwing classes at us twelve hours a day to get us caught up with our permanent companies and we are to be assigned next Monday, so perhaps the pressure will relax. I can really find it in my heart to be sorry for the officers for they are taking a beating along with us. Day before yesterday we hiked 8 miles under field pack and rifle, got back at 5 p.m., pitched shelter tents, ate out in the field and slept out on the very wet ground. We picked up an extra blanket and quilt when we got in from the hike so had plenty of bedding. We put our rain coats on the ground and made our beds on them. Fortunately there was no rain that night and we kept pretty warm so our colds weren't much worse. There is hardly a man who hasn't a cold, myself included. But don't worry – I feel convinced mine is on the mend but many men have been hospitalized.
You may know by now that Grant [his cousin] is here at Camp White. He's in the 362nd Inf., so isn't so very far away but I've had no time to look for him. I beat you to the draw. I wrote Fay and Aunt Mabel right away and had a "so thrilled" letter from Fay with all plans outlined for Xmas. She said there was no bus to Jacksonville but they have a car and gas and will be only too glad to drive into Medford for me. I think I will not try to get off until Xmas for we are supposed to get 3 days a month and I'd like to have mine in a bunch and have a chance to let down a little. As you see there is no chance to come home.
I have been too busy to be really homesick but it really is tough on a lot of the married men and most of the men in my outfit are married. There are lots of funny characters in the bunch that I could write reams about but I haven't time for I want to get this mailed tonight.
It is the first evening we have had all week and we are scheduled for classes all day tomorrow, Sunday. We hear we are to be introduced to the rifle range tomorrow. We have had hours and hours on guns – tearing them down and putting them together again. However, I have been assigned to communication squad and am slated for a switchboard operator. [So much for being a cook or a baker. One wonders why they even ask.] I believe we are to start going to school Monday. I may have to learn the Morse Code also. But more of this when I know more about it.
I hope Al will be able to get home but I can shed no light on this permit to travel business. By the way, you'd better order a battery [for the radio?] from Sears immediately for I think it is your only chance. This friend of mine in Frisco works in a radio shop and she says batteries are a thing of the past – so lose no time.
I will not have time or opportunity to shop for Christmas and I am going to miss it, too. I am enclosing ten dollars and use it as you see fit. You may want some fixins for Xmas dinner or you can try to buy batteries. I must stop for I have some work to do on my bed before I can go to sleep in it. Love, Vance
4 comments:
Did they think batteries were a thing of the past because of the war or was that to say that electricity would make the battery obsolete? Was he just referring to the particular kind of battery used in a radio?
Who is Al? A cousin?
In the 1940s, the age of the little batteries had not yet arrived. The radio is the only thing I can think of that would have used a battery on the farm. I believe it was called a "dry cell" battery, and it was maybe about the size of a car battery. Of course, the military needed batteries to operate their radios in the field as well as for vehicles -- and maybe even for uses I can't think of -- so therefore, they were in short supply stateside. It was probably all a manufacturer could do to fulfill his government contract. And Vance knew that the folks at home on the farm were dependent on the radio for their world news, so he's advising them to try to get a battery ASAP.
Al Sanders was Vance's brother-in-law, married to his oldest sister, Pearl. Since their marriage in 1917 (or so), they had farmed in Alberta. I take it that they have just moved back to the states and Al is working for a "contractor" out of Walla Walla. Meanwhile, Pearl is staying with the parents at the farm. The family is probably concerned about Al's being able to get to the farm for Christmas. Gas was rationed and it sounds as though travel was being discouraged.
Coincidentally, Al was my mother's uncle, so he is both my uncle and my great-uncle. Stanley, their son, is both my first cousin and my first cousin once removed.
The wars we have lived through since you and I were born haven't affected the home front like WWII did. Rationing of gas, tires, food, etc., seems so hard to imagine. I know women were even encouraged to turn in their aluminum pots and pans.
I just checked to be sure I was not mistaken and saw a mention that even cooking "fat" was hard to come by because it was used for many things including lubrication and soap for the troops. And get this: glycerin in fat is an key ingredient in explosives!
My US History prof at U-I (Barnes) said that there was actually great resistance to the US entry into WWII until Pearl Harbor was bombed. Then the citizenry understood the necessity.
So, I suppose that's the glycerin in nitro-glycerin?
I asked a friend who was a teen-ager during the war about food rationing and if she had enough to eat. She said they always had enough to eat but you couldn't always get what you wanted. She said they ate a lot of lamb and they grew a "victory garden" and shared any excess with the neighbors. That sense of helping others is a great thing. Now we're so impersonal about that. We're more apt to give money to an agency and let them take care of those in need.
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