Sun, Apr 15, 1945: new President

"we finally got through combining kaffir finished the last job last Monday, have'nt got much farming done yet, sowed about forty acres of Oats I am not quite through assessing yet, have about a dozen to see yet and one a them is in Wichita one in El Dorado & one in Douglass  I have gotten along pretty well with the job.  The biggest holler is the roads everybody wants their roads fixed, and nobody wants that kind of a job.

"Seems like we have a new President of the United States.  Certainly was surprised at Pres. Roosevelt death, his late pictures have shown that he didn't look to good.”

-- Letter from my grandfather, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Boulder, Colo., April 15, 1945.   In his memoir, my father noted, “Although Leonard was a Republican, and did not agree with many of FDR's policies, he conceded that the jaunty, confident political leader had ‘a good radio voice.'" Leonard did participate in New Deal programs like the Agricultural Adjustment Act, saying “If they’re going to do this, then we ought to get in there and run it.”

Sat, Apr 14, 1945: President Roosevelt's death

"Dear Folks:

"The shock of President Roosevelt's death has certainly left it's mark on the routine of our school.

"Although classes and tests have continued as usual, a much soberer note has been lent to the dormitory. Everyday seems like Sunday afternoon with radios broadcasting only organ music.  And even the blatant jazz of the chow room loud speaker has been replaced by music of a more stately nature.

"Last Friday in accordance with the 'Rocks and Shoals', all men put on 3" black mourning crepe bands.  However by noon an AlNav (rule applying the entire Navy) had come through abolishing this provision of the Articles for Govt. of the U.S. Navy.  Otherwise we would have worn them for 29 days.

"A number of services have been held in his memory.  Yesterday the entire University gathered in Macky Auditorium to hear Pres. Gustafson speak and tomorrow evening at 8 P.M. a more formal memorial service will be held.

"Pres. Truman doesn't appear to be a spectacular man, but apparently he's honest and determined.  There seems to be a tendency to ridicule the man here; and, true he didn't have a statesmanlike appearance in Life's recent Picture of the Week which showed him playing a piano upon which Lauren Bacall was roosted.

"But I think we should give the man a chance to show what he's made of before writing him off as another Johnson."

-- Letter from my father, Boulder, Colo., to his family, Bloomington, Kans., Saturday, April 14, 1945.  Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Ga., on April 12, 1945, at age 63, less than three months after having been sworn in for his fourth term as president.  He died of a massive stroke, after months of declining health. Harry S. Truman was sworn in as president at the White House within three hours of Roosevelt’s death.

Tue, Apr 10, 1945: sale bill

"I was really surprised as we were returning from the track meet to see a sale bill in a restaurant at Douglass with papa's name signed to it.  The sale is to be to-morrow and they are to sell the place as well as other farm equipment. I am trying to work it some way so that I may attend the sale.  Betty Jones has said she will teach for me but I haven't got to see the school board yet."

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to  my father, Boulder, Colo., Tuesday, April 10, 1945.  Papa refers to her father, Charles Sumner Berger. Soviet forces would capture Vienna, three days later on April 13.

My mother, Ruth Murray, far right, at work in the Southwestern College business office, as a college freshman, Winfield, Kans., 1944-1945.

Mon, Apr 2, 1945: alive yet

"Sunday morning we went to Sunday School and on leaving learned it was our time to entertain 'Joe.'  As it happened I had gone to a little extra for dinner because of Easter and we had fried chicken, sliced tomatoes, ice cream, etc.  But the house wasn't exactly clean.  However Joe still seemed to be alive yet when church was over so I guess he survived."

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Boulder, Colo., April 2, 1945.  Joe was the preacher at the Methodist church. 

Sat, Mar 31, 1945: in the sun

"With this new avalanche of work I’ve been forced to revise my bedtime upwards from 10 to 11 P.M.  But Fred Tremayne and I still spend out afternoons studying in the sun, and it seems to pep me up to the extent that I never get sleepy.  Join the Navy and Sunbathe in Vacationland Colorado….

“Say Dad - do you have the dog population of Bloomington Township tabulated yet?"

-- Letter from my father, Boulder, Colo., to his family, Bloomington, Kans., Saturday, March 31, 1945.  My father seems to be ribbing his dad about his assessing work.  Based on assessment records I’ve looked at elsewhere, my grandfather was likely counting and assessing the value of horses, cattle, pigs, chickens, cars, bicycles, furniture, pianos, jewelry, farm equipment and buildings, etc., but probably not counting dogs.

Mon, Mar 19, 1945: pass

"Dear De Vere Sir,

"The Sgt wishes to write!  So if you will be at ease, I'll carry on, from here....

"In the morning I'm going on pass to Liege, Begium.  The boys say they had a lot of fun there.  So expect I will too.  The platoon Sgt. just told me I'm not going on pass but to a rest camp for 3 days.  I'm going to have a big time now.

"Wayne is about 30 miles from here, our paths might cross again!  I hope so."

-- Letter from Dale Sooter, Germany, to my father, Boulder, Colo., Monday, March 19, 1945.  Wayne was a cousin of both Dale and my father.  

Tue, Mar 13, 1945: “them days”

"Here I am sitting around a table in Smith Hall kitchen with a lot of Sigma mates writing letters to former Delphians and whose name should appear on the list but yours!  Everyone looked over the list and said, 'What's this guy like?  Hey is this guy married?  Is this sailor good looking?' So I said 'Well I'm going to write to this guy because I know he's tops!'… [switch from Norma Harrold writing to Mary Nakahiro writing]

"Norma told me you are studying Japanese at Boulder! Tough I'll bet!!! I know, because I've tried to study that ‘chicken scratch’ once upon a time way back in 'them days' in Pasadena, California (plug!) -- and I have several friends (Nisei) who are studying at Ft. Snelling, Minn."

-- Letter from several women at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans., to my father, Boulder, Colo., Tuesday, March 13, 1945.  Although I know nothing specifically about Mary Nakahiro, it seems very likely from her letter that she was a Japanese American who living in Pasadena, California, and was incarcerated along with all other West Coast Japanese Americans in early 1942.  Many of these prisoners were allowed to leave the so-called relocation camps in order to attend college or work jobs outside of the West Coast exclusion zone.  By the end of 1944, about one third of the incarcerated Japanese Americans had been allowed to leave the camps under clearance programs. Many Japanese American men, and some women, were already serving in the military when the war began and many more were drafted or  joined while they were incarcerated in relocation camps.  Ft. Snelling, Minnesota, hosted the Military Intelligence Service Language School from 1944 to 1945, where Nisei were trained in Japanese language for intelligence work.

            Many churches, including the Methodist Church, organized programs to help Japanese American student out of the camps by giving them opportunities to attend college. The Japanese American Student Relocation Committee of the Methodist Church decided in December 1942 to focus its aid on Japanese American Methodists seeking to attend Methodist schools (such as Southwestern College, where my father attended.).  They gave second priority to Methodist students wanting to attend non-Methodist schools.  They gave the lowest priority to helping Buddhist students.

Sources: James C. McNaughton, Nisei Linguists p. 300; Allan W. Austin, From Concentration Camp to Campus: Japanese American Students and World War II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 44.

Wed, Mar 7, 1945: old gent

"Last Saturday we finally made our bike ride up Boulder Canyon....The high point of the trip was visit with an old timer in Christman.  When we passed his house the old gent was combing cockleburrs out of his dogs tail.  Seeming to be so leisurely we went back and asked him a few questions in regard to points of interest in the vicinity. This was enough to light the fuse to an apparently endless collection of anecdotes and facts about Four Mill Creek.

"First he told us the complete history of the old Bolder Valley narrow gauge railway, which ran up to the gold mining towns of Wall Street and Gold Hill, until washed out in 1923.... There is nothing like talking to a native who knows every foot of ground within a ten mile radius and every person or event within the last fifty years for learning the history of a place….

"A page or so ago I took time out to go to Denver with some of the boys. After taking care of the shopping we dropped won to the Ichiyo Cafe for supper. And this Cafe in the Japanese district put out a meal, the like of which I've never seen before - for 90¢.  We really got our chance to read Japanese; for the menu was written in characters and many of the juke box numbers were labelled only with kanji. However, the waitress, a nisei (2nd generation) knew less Japanese than we - so our conversational knowledge of the language didn't get a workout.  She confided in us that a number of boys from our school had appeared there in recent weeks and tried to engage her in conversation.  However, since it was incomprehensible to her, she usually bluffed her through by laughing at the remarks -- but she had decided not to pull her bluff on us."

-- Letter from my father, Boulder, Colo., to his family, Bloomington, Kans., March 7, 1945.  

My father in his Navy ensign uniform, as a student at the Naval language school, Boulder, Colo., 1944-1946.