Jan. 30, '43Dear Folks,
Did I ever tell you that Camp White is set right out in the middle of a plain completely surrounded with mountains? It is a desert in summer. It was apparently a big lake or inland sea ages ago and they find many beautiful agates here about. I thought of this item tonight, or rather afternoon, while we were on parade. It was a beautiful sunny evening and Mt. Pitt was white and shining to the east (south to me) as we passed our commanding officers in review. I had a freshly cleaned and pressed pair of trousers to wear so felt quite dressed up.
Tomorrow I am going out to Jacksonville to visit Fay. Mavis is to pick Grant, Ruth, and myself up in Medford and take us out. Ruth is working at a lunch counter in the grocerateria in Medford and has a room for which she pays $10 per week just to sleep. She and another girl are offering $80 per month for an apartment. Isn't that terrific! Medford is really making hay off the soldiers.
I started attending Division Radio School last Monday morning and have been getting along fine. This morning I passed my Z5 group which complete the alphabet and numerals in code. Now I start working for speed. So far all our study has been in receiving and will be for a while. My next assignment known as Z6 is receiving code at 5 words per minute. After that comes 7 words per minute, then 10 words per minute. I guess that will hold me for some time. We will start sending (using the key) when we work up some speed receiving.
Last Saturday night I went to Grants Pass – 30 miles north – to visit Carrie Morrison, who is Russ Saling's mother-in-law. Left Medford at 10 P.M. and got up there shortly after 11. We sat up and visited until about 3 A.M. so got up very late. Had breakfast in Carrie's room and then strolled about town, ate a late dinner, and I left there at 6 P.M. I had a letter from Carrie tonight saying she was sending me a sweater. She knit it for the Red Cross but had not turned it in so I tried it on when I was up there and it was a perfect fit. She knits beautifully. She got the committee to say I could have it so she will mail it as soon as she hears from me. It is sleeveless and in the khaki color.
[The above photo is of Vance (right) with his friend, Russ Saling, and Russ' girlfriend. Though the picture doesn't show it so much, Russ was a big guy. (I mean -- my dad is standing on something. Russ was probably 6'4".) When Russ was older his hair was pure white and he bore striking resemblance to United States Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren. Russ and his wife, Frances (not the girl in the picture) lived in San Francisco, and he related that people were often deferential toward him because they just weren't quite sure whether he was -- or was not -- Justice Warren. Frances' mother was the Carrie Morrison mentioned in the above post. Alas! I confess that I let that khaki sweater go with the rest of my dad's clothes when he no longer needed them. I'm sorry now, of course, because it was a fine example of the type of work volunteers were doing for our soldiers during the war. KW]
It's impossible to keep everything. Sad, but true, and probably for the best. (Says she who recently posted about her propensity for hanging on to stuff.) And no, I haven't found Cameron's birth announcement. Very strange. But oh well, we have him! :-)
ReplyDeleteYou're right -- we can't keep everything. The sweater was wool, needing to be stored with special care, and it would simply have been a keepsake. Yes, at least you didn't lose Cameron. (LOL) That announcement is probably in a stack of treasures -- maybe a stack of cards?
ReplyDeleteI have no more places to look. I think I must have accidently tossed it somewhere along the line--probably caught up inside other things. Ann made them, so perhaps we can recreate one.
ReplyDeleteI wondered if Ann might have one. I've lost a couple of treasured recipes over the years, and I figured they got mixed in with other papers or the mail and got tossed. It's so frustrating when something you want is misplaced.
ReplyDeleteDo you really think that people noticed that this Russ fellow resembled a Supreme Court Justice? I could barely NAME a Supreme Court Justice let alone recognize one! Maybe people were deferential because he resembled a giant.
ReplyDeleteWhen do you suppose that photo was taken? They look young and they look like they're having fun.
Hallie, you made me think of the Sandra Bullock/Hugh Grant movie, Two Weeks Notice, when SB gets hit with a tennis ball and HG asks her to name the Supreme Court justices to see if she's okay. When she does and asks if she's right, he answers, "How would I know?"
ReplyDeleteActually, I think people were more aware of "important people" back in the day. There was no television, and magazines and papers frequently had pictures of them. I can actually remember (no remarks about my age!!) pictures of senators, etc., and I think I would have recognized them or someone who looked like them. Now I don't have a clue what anyone looks like except the president. (Hard to miss pictures of them.)
We must all be sitting at our computers tonight. Mike and I are still watching the Olympics, and sometimes I'm just not interested so escape to cyberspace.
ReplyDeleteThat Hallie! She just has a way of delving into what I should have researched to begin with. Earl Warren was a Californian, the only person to have been elected to three terms as governor of California and was very popular across party lines. (Remember Russ lived in San Francisco.) Warren was appointed to the Supreme Court by Dwight Eisenhower and is perhaps the single most important jurist of the 20th century.
And I think Chris is right. We were more aware. And we used to respect political figures more than we do now.
There was no date on the photo. I would guess late '20s or early '30s.
Kathy, don't know if you've tried googling "camp white oregon", but there is a lot of interesting information and photos. (What did we do before the Google?)
ReplyDeleteEarl Warren was also a member of the 91st Infantry Division - in WWI. (I thought that Warren had attended U of Idaho and was looking that up when I saw this. Turns out I was thinking of another western SC Justice, William O. Douglas - who as it turns out, did not go to U of I either, but to Whitman in Walla Walla. Yes, I am getting old and confused!)
ReplyDeleteMurray -- (LOL) We had to laugh over the "old and confused" comment. To me, "old and confused" is not being able to remember what I was just thinking about. And yes, I did "google" Camp White. The government "built that city," which had a population of 40,000+ making it the second largest city in Oregon at the time. No wonder Vance remarked that he had to go some distance to mail the post office. I also brought back from the farm an issue of "The Camp White Rogue," the camp magazine.
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