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Webster County
IAGenWeb
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DEAR JOE:
It’s Thanksgiving Day and your home town is quiet as a church. It’s gray November
out and the rain that’s falling is little more than a mist. We've eaten our turkey
dinner, with mashed potatoes and giblet gravy, and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
We did our best to make it the same old Thanksgiving that it always was when you
were home.
What am I saying? You were here today, Joe, just as we must have been with you.
You were in our hearts and in our talk and in our thoughts. You were there at the
table with us, the same dear Joe, the little guy that always got the drumstick,
the tall young colt who'd rather play basketball than eat. Yes, you were here and
yet you weren’t. And nothing will ever be the same until you are here.
I’m thankful for a lot of things, Joe, but most of all, I’m thankful for you.
Thankful that we got to live together so long in such a good and friendly town.
Thankful that you are the kind of a Joe you are. Thankful that this war in which
you are playing such an honorable role seems so nearly over. Thankful that some
day soon you'll be coming home. Joe, when you do we'll really eat turkey.
Until next week, fellow, so long and the best of luck.
Your Home Town Correspondent,
EDWARD BREEN.
P.S. Dear Jane: Everything I’ve said to Joe goes double for you.
HOMETOWN—Navy Mothers’ Club donated $25.00 to the Mary Dolliver
Club to be used at her Red Cross center in North Africa, and $25.00 for use in the
Navy Hospital at San Diego . . . A drive is on for used clothing to be distributed
to people in liberated countries . . . School girls and boys are calling on every-
one in the county . . . School was let out at 2:00 o’clock all over Fort Dodge the
day of Don Peterson’s funeral. Hundreds attended . . . Moose meat
from Canada was served at the Moose party last Monday eve . . . Jerry and Leo
Cavanaugh will market about 7,200 turkeys this year from their farm
southwest of Fort Dodge. They shipped 3,000 to Yanks overseas. Dressed, the Thanksgiving
birds are selling at retail here for 42 cents per pound, up about 10 cents from
last year . . . Out at Vincent, the Ole Champlins had a duck dinner.
Entertaining the Glen Williamses, the Claude Ricketts
and Ed Hoyt and son Tom . . . John Potter
in Navy V-12 at Ames has been elected President of the student body . . . A
Mr. Morrison of Rockwell City stepped out from between two cars onto
First Avenue South and into the path of a car driven by Koula Constantine.
Impact was so great it knocked the rubbers off him forty feet. He is recovering
. . . Webster County raised 695,000 hogs this past year. 37% more than in 1942 .
. . Clinton E. Johnson of Burnside is at Notre Dame for Navy V-12
training . . . The ladies of the Police Auxiliary have cancelled their December
meeting to save gas . . . Hogs are coming into the principal markets so fast that
packers cannot handle them. Tobin’s over KVFD are asking farmers to phone before
making delivery. OPA has reduced the ration point value of all pork products . .
. Bill Beers was elected Captain of the Dodgers football squad
for next year at the annual banquet last week . . . The lawyers had a dinner at
the Country Club Monday night. They brought their wives, ate huge steaks and listened
to Judge Dwight Rider and Dennis Kelleher. Both
were funny and short. John Schaupp presided . . . Central Avenue
is all dressed out in green. But as last year, no lights. We are conserving fuel.
Few toys and no Santa Clauses yet . . . Mrs. Doris Olson Wood has
gone to Washington to be an interpreter in the United Nations relief and rehabilitation
setup . . . Dale and Dean Cummings, twins, are flight instructors
at Camp Girardeau, Missouri . . . H. E. Cunningham is a patient
at the Illinois Central Hospital . . . Captain and Mrs. John Sulzbach
are the proud parents of a daughter. John is in the W. Pacific. Mrs. John, nee
Betty Sims, is here with her mother . . . Dr. Mett Sanders
is coming back from Iowa City after a serious operation, much improved in health
. . . The city collected no garbage Thanksgiving Day . . . Eric Larson,
87, of Badger is dead . . . Western Union in Fort Dodge now has two messenger boys;
the youngest is 75. When Jack Hogan advertised some time
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ago for a clerk the youngest man to apply was 79 . . . The Gideons are rallying
in Fort Dodge this week. They tell me they have given you guys and gals six million
testaments . . . Motor vehicle registration starts next week, December 1st. Yep,
we’re going to use the same battered old plates another year. Verne Hale
promises new stickers.
ON FURLOUGH. S/Sgt. John Peterson, aerial gunner
in fifty missions over the Aleutians. Being transferred to Culver City, California,
for special training in aerial photography. His brother Marvin,
Sgt., in the medical corps, is also here. Peterson photographed both Attu and Kiska.
A third brother, Gene, is in Panama with the medical corps. While
John was in Alaska, he met another Fort Dodger, Sgt. Charles Donahoe,
radio operator with a bomber unit. Donahoe is now back in the U. S. at Tampa, Florida
. . . Sgt. Elmer Sinclair, from Ardmore, Oklahoma, is a flutist
in the army air field band . . . Sgt. Jordan Hogan on his way to
O.C.S. at New Orleans. He has been in England over a year. His brother Julian
is with the Field Artillery at Camp White, Oregon . . . Pfc. R. A. Swanson,
from Texarkana, Texas. Bill, his brother, is in the Navy, C.M.3/c
. . . Pvt. Bob Herbert from Camp Adair, Oregon, enroute to Fort
Lewis, Washington . . . Ensign Joe McTigue, from Norfolk, Va. Joe
is the pilot of a PBY that’s set for sea duty . . . Lt. (j.g. Charles D. Anderson
of Harcourt, from Jacksonville, Florida, where he is a gunnery instructor . . .
Pvt. Hugh Moore, from Indianapolis, Indiana. His brother Fred
is in North Africa . . . Pvt. Ernest Kochovsky, from Fort Lewis,
Washington
. . . Maynard E. Morey, Petty Officer 1/e on his way
to naval air
training at Dallas, Texas . . . Pvt. Arthur Camelin,
after two
years in the Aleutians . . . Cpl. Robert Dunsmore,
from Weingarten,
Missouri. His brother Tom, a 2nd Lt. in AA, is an instructor
at
Camp Davis, North Carolina . . . Bob and Roy Martin
from California.
Bob is a Cpl. in the Air Corps at Lomita and Roy is at Camp Haan, with
AA . . .
1st Lt. L. A. Olson from Washington, D. C. . . . Leonard D.
Randol from Norfolk, Va. He is a radio man in Naval Aviation
. . .
Pfc. Dick Fisher from Camp Chafee, Ark. . . . Mark Nelson,
S. 1/c from New Orleans, His brother Willard is in the Navy at
Fort Pierce, Florida . . . Pvt. Kersten Lyngstead, from Fort Leonard
Wood, Mo. . . . Cpl. Bob Michaelson, from the Army Air. Corps at
Farmingdale, Long Island . . . Lt. Milo Hayes, from Camp. Grant,
Ilinois. He is a recent graduate of Medicine at Administrative Officers School at
Camp Barkeley. Laurence Koerner and wife, 1/e Petty Officer from
the Naval Air Base at Columbus, Ohio . . . 1st Lt. William J. Whalen
from the Army Air Base at Greenville, So. Carolina. His brother, Captain Bob,
was killed while flying with the Marines on a routine flight in this country.
WEDDING BELLS. Eugenia Alline Clark of New Orleans
and Lt. David D. Hill of Fort Dodge, Oct. 30th, in Tuscaloosa,
Ala. . . . Dorothy Fortune, anesthetist at Mercy Hospital, and
Welch Laufersweiler, November 20th, in Fort Dodge . . . Bernice
M. Steen of Lakeview and Martin W. Holst, of Fort
Dodge, at the Deer Creek Lutheran Church, November 17th . . . Delores O’Connor
to Lt, Will T. Minor of Kansas City, Nov. 8rd, at the Lincoln Air Base Chapel at
Lincoln . . . Anna Mae Carlson to Lt. Brad- ford D. Jackson, of Prescott, Ohio,
after the first of the year . . . Arlene Alne of Everett, Washington,
and S/Sgt. Eugene Evenson, of Duncombe, Oct. 30th, at Everett,
Washington.
THE LADIES, GOD BLESS THEM. Mrs. Alice Woolsey,
formerly manager of the basement Ready to Wear of Gates, has joined the WAC in Los
Angeles . . . Lt. Pauline Sherman of the WAC is home from Richmond,
Va., visiting her husband and family. . . . Barbara Steenblock,
Y3/c, Portsmouth, Va., was in Iowa last week for a very short time. She visited
Fort Dodge and Clarion. HAPPY LANDING. In England, Capt. Arthur
Schwidder. He was on the Alcan highway for fifteen months . . . Pfc.
Andrew Weiberg, somewhere . . . Sgt. Bob Johnston,
son
of City Dad Bill Johnston, somewhere in Africa. He is a
Commando
and was in on the landing on Kiska . . . Cpl. Duane Helsabeck
of Otho, in India.
PROMOTED. To 2/c Ship Fitter, Robert Otteson, with the Naval repair
unit in Australia . . . Roy M. Vieg, to Ph.M1/c in the S, W. Pacific
. . . Fred Davidson on convoy duty to Elect, Mate 1/e . . .
Mary F. Murphy, to Y8/c with the Waves at Cedar Falls . . . Chaplain
Arnold Bertram from ist Lt. to Capt. in North
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Africa. He got it on his 29th birthday. To Cpl. Melvin Peterson
at Fort Knox, Ky. . . . Cpl. Jim Constantine, to Sgt. at Fort Bliss
Texas. He is with AA.
THEY MET IN ENGLAND. Lt. Chet Bruce Hanson—he
is a prisoner in Germany now—and Sgt. Richard Schnurr. Dick has
been to London several times. He is with the Army Air Forces . . . In Ft. Lauderdale,
Fla., Ensign Joe McTigue and Coast Guardsman W. T. Chantland,
former Colonel in the army, retired counsel for F.T.C. and veteran of three wars,
Chantland didn’t know Joe was a Fort Dodger.
COMMISSIONED. Art Brooks, Jr., as an Ensign in
the Navy at Pensacola, Fla. He is a fighter pilot. His younger brother Bob, is in
the Medical Corps at Atterbury, Ind. . . . Lt. (j.g.) Alvie A. Carlson
of Tucson, Ariz.
DECORATED. Lt. Lyle Jensen, his second Oak Leaf
cluster. He is a bombardier on a Fort. He has been on a lot of mssions and hopes
to be coming home soon. His brother Bob is getting pilot training at Uvalde, Texas.
PRISONER OF WAR IN GERMANY; is Edwin McMahon of
Clare, taken in North Africa. His brother Roy is in the Marine
Corps at San Diego. Joe McMahon, their brother, is in England .
. . Donald J. Johnson, employee of Sieg-Fort Dodge Company, has
been honorably discharged from the Army because of an injury to his back . . .
Bernard Schmidt is home with an honorable discharge from Darnall Hospital,
Danville, Ky. He was overseas, serving in England and in Africa . . . Lt. John
B. Foley is with the Amphibian Engineers at Camp Gordon Johnston near
Tallahassee, Fla. Walter Winchell once called this camp the Devil’s Island of the
U. S. Foley says, “the camp consists of snakes, mosquitoes, flies and sand” . .
. Christmas Seals are on sale now. S/Sgt. Robert Phipps writes
from England: “I asked a girl in one of the dime stores for some thumb tacks—they’re
called drawing pins here—and couldn’t make her understand what I wanted, so we laughed
at each other and I left.”
DECORATED with the Purple Heart is Pvt. Thomas Gody.
Tom was wounded in the Sicilian campaign. He is now at Schick Hospital in Clinton.
Mrs. Gody is working at Tobin’s where Tom used to work. He is getting
along fine . . . Cpl. John F. Tornabane is home, honorably discharged
from the army. He was with the Air Corps at Mobile, Ala. . . . Charles D. Freed,
Fort Dodge, Route 1, has been called into service by the Aviation Cadet Examining
Board. He will go to Camp Dodge . . . Bob McCormack is in the hospital
in Fort Sill, Okla. He received a back injury in basic training . . . Tom Hay
of Otho, Route 1, is now in training as an aviation cadet . . . Ralph Rutledge
is out of Great Lakes Hospital. He was there for six weeks after service in the
Solomons as a cook. He will go back to his cooking at Gulfport, Miss.
YOUR LETTERS TO US. Arnold C, Haggie, SK3/c Some-
where in the Tropics: “I might be home for Xmas. What a gift that would be . . .
The Tropics are as I had read about in school but never had an idea I would see.
Give a cheery hello to all in Fort Dodge. Tho I’m thousands of miles away, there
is no place like home.”
Pfc. Bill Muenster, Camp Mackall, N. C.: “So far I’ve made eleven
parachute jumps, plus I don’t know how many off the back end of a truck. This life
is very interesting even tho they do seare the daylights out of you once in a while.”
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Ruth Eubanks, (*)2/e, Memphis, Tenn.: “Today we are sitting here
in the officéwith all the windows open and everyone is
walking around without coats. The weather has been beautiful, so warm I can hardly believe it.”
(*) hole in paper
A. R. Ricke, Aviation Cadet, Marfa, Texas: “Here in the heart of
the Davis Mountains not far from the mighty Rio Grande— Iowa seems far away; but
Y.L.F.H. brings ‘Central Avenue’ and the ‘Square’ very close.”
Dr. Otto Glesne, Lt. Comdr., U. S. Naval Hospital, New River, N.
C.: “I don’t care where you are, whether across or on this side of the water, in
Podunk or Hoboken, we all like to read about John Mitchell getting
well and Chas. R.’s feeble attempts at poker, to say nothing about enjoying
hearing that this one or that one is home on leave. Keep up the good work.”
Pvt. Donald E. Haring, Ft. Benning, Ga.: “Instead of gathering
walnuts as we usually do at this time of the year at home, several of us Yankees
went out and gathered pecans last Sunday . . . Say hello to all the fellows and
gals for me in your next letter.”
Ralph Meyers SC3/e, Farragut, Idaho: “The Navy is giving us fellows
a real break. They are furnishing the piece and ten rounds of ammunition to go deer
hunting on liberty days . . . Broke open a case of eggs today from Algona, and sausages
from Dubuque. Now how about a few hams from Fort Dodge.”
S/Sgt. Stuart R. Peterson, Seattle, Washington: “Those here that
we know from the old home town are Norman and Constance Bradford,
Russell and Betty Johnson, Fred and Helen Brisbane,
Jerry and Betty Whittemore, Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Pratt,
Mr. and Mrs. Ray Anderson and Ernie Langstaff. Wally Olson
and Bob Thatcher were also here for a while until the Air Corps
grabbed them up.”
Nels Larson S1/e, Armed Guard Center, San Francisco: “Left San
Francisco in August to New Hebrides to Dutch West Indies through the Panama Canal
to Halifax and the East Coast. We had a lucky trip, It’s kind of hard for us to
get mail. We move around too much. I got 52 letters in Panama and 63 when I got
to the States. I didn’t know I had so many friends. Merry Xmas to you all.”
And in the mail were other grand letters from Pfc. R. Stephans,
Lansing, Mich.; Lt. K. A. Hill, Camp Polk, La.; Pvt. Virgil
E. Cannon, Camp Barkeley, Tex.; Cpl. Lawrence J. Bunns,
Camp Pendleton, Va.; Merlin Williams, SE2/c, San Diego, Calif.;
Pfc. Kennard Risdall, A.P.O. Seattle, Washington; Pvt. Pat
Derrig, Ft. Jordson, S. C.; S/Sgt. Lawrence Starck,
A.P.O. New York; Lt. R. M. Carson, Camp Adair, Oregon; Blair
Swasy, A.P.O. San Francisco, Calif.; Pvt. Irene C. Miller,
WAC, Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga., and cards from Clarence Fritts S1/c,
New York; S/Sgt. John B. Gagnon, Camp Houge, Texas; and Lt.
Ray Walsh at Orano, Maine. Ray says “Will send you a deer next week
(maybe?).”
Thanks a lot, all you Joes and Janes. Thanks a lot for all your letters. Keep them
coming. They make the writing of this letter a warm and heartfelt pleasure, And
so until next week, the best of everything.
Y. H. T. C., ED. B.
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