Possibly the best remembered story of our family which still hangs around us like a mantel, is the saga of Dad's WWII service in the Navy, which covers everything from the induction station in Kansas City, through boot camp in Farragut, Idaho, to his assignment as Ship's Storekeeper aboard the U.S.S. Menifee - a "troop ship"/attack transport in the Pacific Theater.  I am fortunate to have in my possession most of the letters written by him to us, either individually or as a family during that period.  The collection also includes several letters to his mother as well as postcards that were exchanged between my mother and her mother-in-law.  Mother destroyed most of his letters to her, explaining that they were "too juicy".  None of her letters to him survive, presumably falling to the same fate.  In addition there is quite a collection of ephemera relating to his military service from his first notice to report for a physical to his discharge papers.

 

I have transcribed all of the extant correspondence, placing it in chronological order and embedding pertinent WWII historical moments and the Menifee's intinerary. In combining these elements, I learned that the Menifee delivered the first wave of the 5th Army's invasion troops to Okinawa on Easter Sunday, 1945, narrowly escaping a Japanese Kamakazi attack, and sailed into Nagasaki's devastated harbor to deliver part of the Occupation Forces after the Japanense surrender.  Because of censorship in place during the War, the former is not mentioned at all in his letters, while the latter - taking place after the War's end and the lifiting of censorship - is described in heart wrenching detail.

 

Dad was always an excellent artist, drawing and sketching things for us kids.  So it's to be expected that he included drawings in his letters.  I scanned all of them and included other photos and graphics as well and put everything together  in a book I've titled  "Through the Window of the War - a Family Journal, 1944-1946".  Because it also includes highly personal reflections and memories in the endnotes, it is available to immediate family members only upon request.  It is not available for publication.

 

This slide show consists of drawings from his letters. 

 

 

Whenever I review old family photos, see various family members posing so proudly with their automobiles, I can't help but go down a memory lane that's full of stories and vivid memories of how cars played such an important part in our family.

 

Dad was the one who loved cars.  Couldn't work on one, but he loved them, methodically maintained them and frequently traded them.

 

His first "horseless carriage" was a red Model T Ford.  He probably bought it not long after graduating from South San Antonio high school in 1929, as there are several photos of him in the 1930's time period, in proud macho poses - he was a show off - with his "new" car.  He wrote in his memoir that he borrowed $40 from his younger brother, John, to buy the car and never paid it back.  But as the stories go, John got a lot of road time in it as well, for he was the chaperone when Dad and Mom were dating in the early '30's.

 

It was an arrangement, according to Mother, that Granny Reynolds (Annie Lucy Reynolds, Dad's grandmother who lived with his family) insisted on.  I'm sure there is a good bit of truth in that, for Granny was "old country" and very conservative in her attitudes about what was proper in male-female relationships.  Mom used to tell an interesting story about how she shocked the family one time when she stood up to Granny and told her that "George was old enough to make up his own mind about what time to come home!" from one of their dates.

 

Anyway, John dutifully went along with the young couple wherever they went riding around, with John squeezed into the cramped quarters behind the seat of the old Model T, from which space he pestered and teased his brother and his beloved "Ruthie".  I have no doubt that all the photos of Mom and Dad standing beside the car were taken by John.

 

I've often tried to imagine what it must have been like to drive the little car from San Antonio, TX to Paradise, KS where Mom's family lived.  I had a parishoner many years ago who told me about what roads were like in those days - rutted, bumpy, gravel surfaced obstacle courses - at least in Oklahoma.  So I can only imagine what a trip that must have been from southwest Texas through Oklahoma and on to north central Kansas.  Chugging along at 25-30 mph (probably less than that), windows down, hot and sweaty.

 

The photos definitely show Dad and Mom there during at least one summer.  Dad apparently made the obligatary visit to Kansas to meet Mom's parents and brothers and do the "family thing" by helping out with the wheat harvest.  There are photos of him posing with the boys on the combine, with the "hoot-n-anny" and sitting on the back porch of the old home place with Mom.  So Iit seems likely to me that he drove the car (did Mom go with him? - probably not - it would have required an overnight stay somewhere) to Kansas.  Of course it's possible they took the train, but I have no memories of stories being told about a train trip of any kind before WWII.

 

But it's for sure that the car went to Hutchinson, KS, when they both went there to attend Breese Nazarene Bible School.  The photos of Dad with the car in that time frame show it dirty and aging - "rode hard and put up wet".  How long Dad had it either at school or after they married in 1932, I've never heard.  In fact, there aren't enough photos in the early years of their marriage (probably couldn't afford the luxury of a camera) to determine how many or what kind of "wheels" they did have.  There is one threesome family pose with a car backdrop, taken in 1934, while they were living in Bristow before Marna was born; but I'm not expert enough in dating antique vehicles to make out what kind of a car it was.  Then the next car photo is of Dad, Mom, Jim and Marna posing beside the "new" 1937 Oldsmobile.  A blow up of the license plate shows a 1939 date.  However on February 7, 1944, only days before reporting for induction into the Navy. Dad wrote his mother: "...I sold our car today for 170.00 more than we paid for it in August 1940  Sold it for cash and turned it from a perishable asset or possible liability into a live asset for Ruth. It is sort of a relief to be free from it too, with tires and gas getting to be so tough.  She'll never miss it much and prefers to have the money than a car while I'm gone."  This could mean there was yet another car purchased in 1940.

 

 

 

 

When it comes summertime, my mind overflows with memories of the gardens we had when I was a child.

 

The first garden I remember was a rather small garden in comparison to many of those that came later.  It was on a small plot of ground on a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood that Daddy rented, I imagine, for the purpose of having a garden that would produce enough fresh vegatables to feed the six of us who were in the home at that time.  The reason I especially remember this garden is because after church on Sunday morning, we'd go by the garden and Daddy would take me to the short row of corn he had planted just for me.  I have no memory of harvesting any good "roastin' ears" off my little parcel of the larger corn rows, but I'm sure I did get the benefit of the harvest - corn on the cob is probably my most favorite fresh vegetable and that early designated stand of corn probably helped set my preference.

 

Gardens in later years were much larger.  I can remember one that was almost a half of a city block!  That's the garden I especially remember for the Saturday morning task of picking off the potato bugs and dropping them into pails of kerosene that I had to lug up and down the rows in the blazing Kansas sun.  My older sister and I had this memorable job only one summer that I remember but the potato patch seemed like it went on forever.  I don't know that Daddy ever planted that many potatoes again.

 

Another rather large garden was probably one of the best garden spots Daddy ever had.  Again, it was in a residential area and consisted of a couple of vacant lots that Daddy worked out an arrangement to rent for the garden.  He had that garden spot for several years.  What made it such a great place to garden was that Daddy didn't have to haul 55 gallon drums of water in a trailer pulled behind the family car to the garden.  This garden had a well on it which provided all the water he needed.  I remember that garden yielding a lot of tomatoes that I had to help prepare for canning.

 

My cousin, Evelyn, often came to help mother can.  Four women working in our hot, tiny kitchen was certainly a challenge.  The years I remember helping with the tomatoes, my job was always to slip the skins off each hot orb after it came out of the scalding water.  So much tomato juice dripped down my arms that I had to tie tea towels around by arms and tie tea-towel just below my elbows and place bath towels on the floor to catch the sticky liquid.  Those towels would become quickly soaked and have to be changed.

 

Another canning chore I "got" to help with was done outside at the edge of the concrete stoop at the back door.  Daddy had drilled some holes along one edge of the concrete, inserted some big bolts through holes in a wide board and fastended the whole thing securely to the stoop.  This was then used as the extension to which the big hand grinder could be attached.  I spent what seemed like hours feeding onions, peppers, green tomatoes, and cucumbers into the hopper and turning the handle first with one hand until it grew tired and then the other until it grew tired and then I'd switch hands and keep grinding.  This process always seemed to go on endlessly, but the end product of those ground up vegatables was always the best chow-chow, relish and picallily I've ever had.

 

I try to garden a little bit myself now, always with dreams of having the time to do it on a larger scale.  I also can some, although I haven't in recent years because I now have a 9-5 job and can't take off like I used to to spend a week or two "putting up" things.  But I still like to can tomatoes, freeze corn on and off the cob, and make pickles.  I have a friend who helps me and we share the products of our labors.

 

Tonight I'm going to have a fresh batch of summer squash for supper, shared with me by my daughter from her small garden.  I still have some delicious green beans in the freezer she gave me last year, and a couple of weeks ago she put a half bushel of roastin' ears in my freezer for me.  My friend's tub-raised tomatoes aren't doing very well - we've had too much rain this summer and they've been drowned out repeatedly - and the volunteers that came up in my kitchen garden got a late start, so I'm having to buy tomatoes for my tomato and peanut butter sandwiches (a family favorite) for another month or so at least.

 

Does anyone want to help me finish off last year's corn on the cob?