When I was a senior in High School, my father was called up to active duty and sent to San Luis Obispo. He had problems with his ears as a result of his service in the artillery in World War I. Because of this, he was eventually given a medical discharge. He got home from being discharged the day of my graduation from high school in 1941. He got into Ogden by train in the afternoon, so we went down and picked him up
After graduation I worked in the summer at a cannery peeling tomatoes. I was determined to go through college, so I wanted to earn some money for that. We peeled dishpans of tomatoes for 8¢ a pan. It bothered my hands, so I had to wear rubber gloves. We’d walk about a mile and a half each day to the cannery.
Later in the war I worked at the cannery as a timekeeper. Each day a busload of POWs was brought to the cannery to work. They were from the POW camp in Tremonton. I had to keep track of them. Since my office was closest to the working area, I caught most of the First Aid problems. I remember that one of the POWs cut his hand one day and had to be taken to Bushnell Hospital to have it stitched.
One of the POWs painted a picture of me, but I couldn’t really pay him for it as money wasn’t allowed in the camp, so I could only pay him 2 packs of cigarettes. Most of the POWs didn’t speak English, but the guard spoke a little German I think. He usually left his gun I’m my office during the day. After the war they were all sent home.
I was a freshman in college when the war started. We were in church on Sunday, December 7th, but as soon as church was over the news spread like wildfire! Pearl Harbor had been attacked. After my freshman year, I worked as a messenger at Bushnell Hospital while they were building it. Bushnell General Military Hospital was an Army World War II hospital in Brigham City, Utah from August 1942 to June 1946. It specialized in treating amputations, maxillofacial surgery, neuropsychiatric conditions, and tropical diseases. It was also one of the first hospitals to experimentally use penicillin. Bushnell was a regional facility for wounded solders from the Mountain States that provided quality medical care to patients.
Another summer I had a job at Hill Field near Ogden. I carpooled with several other workers, including my brother Kay who could not join the military for health reasons, and also my cousin, Wayne Freeman who was also exempt for health reasons. The people who worked at home also helped the war effort. My job at Hill Field involved keeping track of planes that were out of commission and finding where the parts where so they could be repaired and sent back into service.
Rationing soon became necessary because of the amount of goods needed for the war effort. That was a problem for my parents as they had quite a few fruit trees and depended on canning those things for food. They had to apply for extra sugar rations during the canning season in order to be permitted to buy the required sugar.
Gas was also rationed which meant no traveling for pleasure. Once a friend was able to get a motorcycle, but it was in Salt Lake City, so he was given an extra ration of three or four gallons of gas so he could go get it. Even though Logan was not that far from Brigham City, we couldn’t get enough gas to go back and forth much, so stayed in Logan the whole time except for summer vacation when I went home to work.
My older brother, Dean, was in ROTC at USAC. When he graduated in the spring of 1942 he was not able to wear the traditional cap and gown. He graduated in his military uniform and was commissioned a second lieutenant as well as a call to active duty. He also got married in September of 1942.
Dean received his overseas orders in 1943 and was sent to England. We had maps of the various areas where people were stationed, so we had a rough idea of where he might be, but we couldn’t know for certain because of censorship. He participated in Exercise Tiger. We later found out that he was part of the D-Day invasion, landing on “Utah Beach.” While Dean was away, his first child was born in December 1945 at Bushnell Hospital. He didn’t see his son until he was almost 2 years old. At home, we couldn’t be sure just where he was, but we suspected where he was and listened to the news of the war as well as following the progress of the Allies on a map.
At school (Utah State Agricultural College) I started on the Smith-Hughes program which was vocational home economics to train teachers. It entailed me taking 18-20 credits per semester. It was during school that I first met a young man named Verlin Stephens. After the first 2 years of college, Verlin left for the Army. I finished my last two years while he was gone. We had dated about 18 months before he had to leave. We got engaged on February 25, 1943.
When Verlin left for Fort Douglas, I planned to go see him the next weekend, but he was already gone by then and didn’t know just where he was going.
We saw very little of each other from 1943-1946. I taught school during the 1945-6 school year at Plain City. I was hired to teach Home Economics. I taught 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th grades. There were 3 Home Ec classes as well as a 7th grade Physical Education class. On the noon hours I coached an adagio dance team.
I went home one weekend after the end of the war and happened to read in the newspaper that the troop ship Olmstead was scheduled to dock that day in Oakland. I knew Verlin had ridden it from Guam to Saipan, so assumed that he would be on it, so I went back home early, assuming that he would call. I was home only a short time before I got my call.
Once Verlin was home, we planned to get married in August 1946, but housing was really scarce just after the war. The only decent place we could find was available in June. If we wanted it, we would have to pay two months rent just to hold it, so we decided to go ahead and get married in June.
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